One, Two, Three

This article is about the 1961 film. For the 2008 Hindi film, see One Two Three (2008 film). For other uses, see 1-2-3.

One, Two, Three
Theatrical release poster by Saul Bass
Directed by	Billy Wilder
Produced by	Billy Wilder
Screenplay by	I.A.L. Diamond Billy Wilder
Based on	Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnár
Narrated by	James Cagney
Starring	James Cagney Horst Buchholz Pamela Tiffin Arlene Francis
Music by	André Previn
Cinematography	Daniel L. Fapp
Editing by	Daniel Mandell
Studio	The Mirisch Company Pyramid Productions, A. G.
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	December 15, 1961 (1961-12-15) (United States)
Running time	108 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English, German, Russian

One, Two, Three is a 1961 American comedy film directed by Billy Wilder and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond. It is based on the 1929 Hungarian one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnár, with a "plot borrowed partly from" Ninotchka, a 1939 film co-written by Wilder.^[2][3] The comedy features James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, Arlene Francis, Leon Askin, Howard St. John, and others.^[4] It would be Cagney's last film appearance until Ragtime, 20 years later.^[5][6]

The film is primarily set in West Berlin during the Cold War, but before the construction of the Berlin Wall, and politics is predominant in the premise.

Plot

C.R. "Mac" MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola Company, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier in the Middle East (about which he is still bitter). Nevertheless, Mac is angling to become head of Western European Coca-Cola Operations, based in London. After working on an arrangement to introduce Coke into the Soviet Union, Mac receives a call from his boss, W.P. Hazeltine in Atlanta. Scarlett Hazeltine, the boss's hot-blooded 17-year-old socialite daughter, is coming to Berlin and Mac receives the unenviable task of taking care of this young whirlwind.

An expected two-week stay develops into two months, and Mac discovers just why Scarlett is enamored of Berlin—she surprises him by announcing that she's married to a young man, Otto Piffl, who happens to be an East German Communist with ardent anti-capitalism views. The socialite couple are bound for Moscow to make a new life for themselves ("They've assigned us a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!"). Since Hazeltine and his wife are coming to Berlin to collect their daughter the very next day, this is obviously a disaster of monumental proportions, and Mac deals with it as any good capitalist would — by framing the young Communist firebrand and having him picked up by the Stasi, the East German secret police, who later force Otto to sign a confession that he's an American spy (after finally cracking from repeated exposure to the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" during interrogation).

Under pressure from his stern and disapproving wife (who wants to take her family back to live in the U.S.), and with the revelation that Scarlett is pregnant, Mac sets out to bring Otto back with the help of his new Russian business associates. With the boss on the way, he finds that his only chance is to turn Otto into a son-in-law in good standing — which means, among other things, making him a capitalist with an aristocratic pedigree (albeit contrived). In the end, the Hazeltines approve of their new son-in-law (upon which Mac learns from Hazeltine that Otto will be named the new head of Western European Operations—with Mac getting a promotion to VP of Procurement (back in Atlanta) Mac reconciles with his family at the airport, and to celebrate his promotion, offers to buy his family a Coke. Ironically, after handing out the Cokes to his family, he realizes upon inspection that the final bottle he takes for himself is actually Pepsi-Cola.

Cast

James Cagney as C.R. MacNamara.

• James Cagney as C.R. "Mac" MacNamara
• Horst Buchholz as Otto Ludwig Piffl
• Pamela Tiffin as Scarlett Hazeltine
• Arlene Francis as Phyllis MacNamara
• Liselotte Pulver as Fräulein Ingeborg (Mac's secretary)
• Howard St. John as Wendell P. Hazeltine
• Hanns Lothar as Schlemmer (Mac's assistant and henchman)
• Leon Askin as Peripetchikoff
• Ralf Wolter as Borodenko
• Karl Lieffen as Fritz (Mac's chauffeur)
• Hubert von Meyerinck as Count von Droste-Schattenburg
• Loïs Bolton as Melanie Hazeltine
• Peter Capell as Mishkin
• Til Kiwe as Reporter
• Henning Schlüter as Dr. Bauer
• Karl Ludwig Lindt as Zeidlitz

Production

“	We knew that we were going to have a comedy, we [were] not going to be waiting for the laughs. But we had to go with Cagney, because Cagney was the whole picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny. But just the speed was funny...The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world...And yeah, we did not wait, for once, for the big laughs.	”
—From Conversations with Wilder (1999, ISBN 0375406603) by Cameron Crowe[7]

Cagney decided to take the role primarily because it was to be shot in Germany: while growing up in Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood, he had had fond memories of the area, which was "teeming with German immigrants."^[7] Horst Buchholz was a young European actor who had recently finished The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen; during the production, he became the only actor that Cagney ever openly disliked:^[7]

"I got riled at S.Z. Sakall," he once said, "in Yankee Doodle Dandy for trying to steal a scene, but he was an incorrigible old ham who was quietly and respectfully put in his place by Michael Curtiz. No harm in the old boy. But this Horst Buchholz character I truly loathed. Had he kept on with his little scene-stealing didoes, I would have been forced to knock him on his ass, which I would have very much enjoyed doing."

Wilder was filming in Berlin the morning the Berlin Wall went up, forcing the crew to move to Munich.^[3]

During principal photography, Wilder received a call from Joan Crawford, recently appointed to the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola following her husband Alfred Steele's death. In response to Crawford's protests over the use of the Coca-Cola brand in the film, Wilder scattered some references to Pepsi, including the final scene.^[8]

Some scenes were shot at Bavaria Film Studios.^[7]

Soundtrack

Aram Khachaturian's lively "Sabre Dance" marks the moments when Mac moves into energetic action.^{[citation needed]}

Release

When the movie opened, it came with a preface added by Wilder:

"On Sunday, August 13th, 1961, the eyes of America were on the nation's capital, where Roger Maris was hitting home runs #44 and 45 against the Senators. On that same day, without any warning, the East German Communists sealed off the border between East and West Berlin. I only mention this to show the kind of people we're dealing with—REAL SHIFTY."^[3]

Reception

Critical response

Critic Bosley Crowther applauded the work of Cagney and wrote, "With all due respect for all the others, all of whom are very good—Pamela Tiffin, a new young beauty, as Scarlett; Horst Buchholz as the East Berlin boy, Lilo Pulver as a German secretary, Leon Askin as a Communist stooge and several more—the burden is carried by Mr. Cagney, who is a good 50 per cent of the show. He has seldom worked so hard in any picture or had such a browbeating ball. His fellow is a free-wheeling rascal. His wife (Arlene Francis) hates his guts. He knows all the ways of beating the rackets and has no compunctions about their use. He is brutishly bold and brassy, wildly ingenious and glib. Mr. Cagney makes you mistrust him—but he sure makes you laugh with him. And that's about the nature of the picture. It is one with which you can laugh—with its own impudence toward foreign crises—while laughing at its rowdy spinning jokes."^[1] Time magazine called it a "yell-mell, hard-sell, Sennett-with-a-sound-track satire of iron curtains and color lines, of people's demockeracy, Coca-Colonization, peaceful noexistence [sic], and the Deep Southern concept that all facilities are created separate but equal."^[2] Time notes Wilder "purposely neglects the high precision of hilarity that made Some Like It Hot a screwball classic and The Apartment a peerless comedy of officemanship. But in the rapid, brutal, whambam style of a man swatting flies with a pile driver, he has produced a sometimes beWildered [sic], often wonderfully funny exercise in nonstop nuttiness." The film won kudos from the staff at Variety. They wrote, "Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with topical gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap. But total experience packs a considerable wallop."^[9]

According to J. Hoberman, screenwriter Abby Mann (who wrote Judgment at Nuremberg) "deemed Wilder's [film] so tasteless, he felt obliged to apologize for it at the Moscow Film Festival."^[3]

Box office

One, Two, Three did not do well at either the U.S. or German box office.^[10] The lighthearted East-West Berlin story felt much more sinister at the release,^{[citation needed]} since the Berlin Wall had been built after principal photography began.

Awards

Nominations

• Academy Awards: Oscar, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Daniel L. Fapp; 1962.
• Golden Globes: Golden Globe, Best Motion Picture - Comedy; Best Supporting Actress, Pamela Tiffin; 1962.
• Laurel Awards: Golden Laurel, Top Comedy, 4th place; Top Male Comedy Performance, James Cagney, 4th place; 1962.
• Writers Guild of America Awards: Best Written American Comedy (Screen), Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond; 1962.

Homages and references

• As in Avanti! (1972), the humor of the film is partly based on the contrast between people from different cultures.
• The film makes several references to Cagney's earlier films, including a Cagney impression from Red Buttons, and the grapefruit-to-the-face incident from The Public Enemy. Cagney also refers to his contemporary Edward G. Robinson by using his "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" line from Little Caesar, which was a competitor of The Public Enemy.
• The Cold War is referenced, with one joke spoken by an apparatchik seeming to foreshadow the Cuban Missile Crisis: "We have trade agreement with Cuba: they send us cigars, we send them rockets."^[3]
• Cagney's male (and former SS) assistant crossdresses to deceive the Soviets but gets men interested in him like Jack Lemmon in Wilder's Some Like It Hot.
• The figures of the three Russian commissars are re-introduced from Ninotchka, where Wilder co-wrote the script.
• A reference to Cagney's film Yankee Doodle Dandy is the use of a cuckoo clock that played the song "Yankee Doodle", complete with Uncle Sam, American flag in hand, that pops out when the "time" is right.
• Cagney noted that he quit Hollywood after this film due to fatigue from an inordinate number of lines in a lengthy movie helmed by a demanding Wilder and to a feeling of jealousy when he heard from a friend about to set off on a leisurely yachting trip.^[6]
• The "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" - torture was later itself referred to in Bananas.

Re-releases

One, Two, Three aired on The ABC Sunday Night Movie on January 31, 1965.^[11] It was received enthusiastically in Germany upon its 1985 re-release.^[10] One, Two, Three was given a grand re-premier at a large outdoor showing in Berlin which was broadcast simultaneously over television. The film went on to spend a year in the Berlin theaters as it was rediscovered by West Berlin citizens.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Crowther, Bosley (December 22, 1961). "Berlin Laughter: One, Two, Three Is at Astor and Fine Arts". NYT Critics' Pick. The New York Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D07E0DF153AE13ABC4A51DFB467838A679EDE. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "BeWildered Berlin". Time. December 8, 1961. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895803,00.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Corliss, Richard (August 11, 2011). "One, Two, Three (1961)". Top 10 Berlin Wall Movies. Time. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2087629_2087628_2087608,00.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. 
4. ^ One, Two, Three at the Internet Movie Database.
5. ^ Lacayo, Richard (April 14, 1986). "It Was All Big—and It Worked—James Cagney: 1899-1986". Time. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,961095,00.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. "It was Forman who directed Cagney in Ragtime, the 1981 film that brought him back into the public eye after two decades of retirement. After completing Billy Wilder's 1961 comedy One, Two, Three, Cagney vowed to quit filmmaking." 
6. ^ ^{a b} Neal Gabler (commentary), Reel 13, March 29, 2008.
7. ^ ^{a b c d} Tatara, Paul. "Articles". Turner Classic Movies. http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17693/One-Two-Three/articles.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. 
8. ^ Thomas, Bob (1978). Joan Crawford, A Biography. Simon and Schuster. p. 212. 
9. ^ Variety. Film review, 1961. Last accessed: January 31, 2008.
10. ^ ^{a b} Wolf, Martin (10 August 2008). "Billy Wilder und der Kalte Krieg: Cola gegen Kommunisten [Billy Wilder and the Cold War: Cola Against Communists]". Germany: Spiegel Online. http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/2446/cola_gegen_kommunisten.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. "Eins, zwei, drei widerfuhr historische Gerechtigkeit: Als der Film 1985 erneut in die Kinos kam, wurde er zum Publikumshit, vor allem in West-Berlin."  (German)
11. ^ "Television: Jan. 29, 1965". Time. January 29, 1965. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839139,00.html. Retrieved 2011-09-11. 

External links

• One, Two, Three at the Internet Movie Database
• One, Two, Three at the TCM Movie Database
• One, Two, Three at MGM's website