Although Billy Wilder won fame for directing films, especially several brilliant ones between 1944 and 1960, he was always a screenwriter. He never directed a film he did not write; his writing career has spanned more than fifty years. Nurtured in the...

Billy Wilder (born 1906) has been honored repeatedly as one of Hollywood's finest directors, writers, and producers. He created more than 50 films, encompassing such well-known comedies as The Apartment and Some Like It Hot and award-winning dramas...

Born Samuel Wilder in an Austrian village, this six-time Academy Award winning director, screenwriter, and producer was dubbed Billy after Buffalo Bill of the 1880s traveling western show. That American nickname apparently foretold, in the wake of the...

Billy Wilder (June 22 1906 – March 27 2002) was an Austrian-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, film director, and producer whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile...

00-00-0000 BILLY WILDER Date: 03-31-2002, Sunday Section: OPINION Edition: All Editions -- Sunday Biographical: BILLY WILDER Many Americans who grew up in the mid-20th century can relate to Billy Wilder's view of their country. To a large extent, the great movie...

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Today is Tuesday, March 27, the 86th day of 2007. There are 279 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On March 27, 1977, 583 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747, attempting to take off, crashed into a Pan Am 747 on the...

A new biography of Ingrid Bergman casts fresh light on the making of the 1942 classic "Casablanca," in which none of its three stars wanted to appear. They never suspected that their roles would become the best-remembered of their careers.In the newly published "Ingrid," Charlotte...

Wilder's forte is the great American congame. In practically all of his movies (original stories and adaptations alike) the plot revolves around some sort of swindle. (p. 2) In Wilder's view, sex and money are inextricably linked. His characters use sex to obtain cash and position and involve themselves in frauds to get sex. Sometimes, however, greed and lechery conflict, and the whole scheme blows up…. This kind of mordancy is often charming but sometimes, in more serious situations, m...

Wilder's work, like the work of most of his contemporaries, is compromised; in his case, though, the compromises have been condemned with unusual severity. The common critical view of Wilder—much too simple a view, I believe—is that he is a cynic who repeatedly tempers the harshness of his vision in deference to the box office. (p. 9) Wilder's tendency to caricature is one way of diluting the acid. But even at its most frivolous, this caricature cannot help exposing Wilder'...

Billy Wilder's films are belt-and-suspender films: they combine the jaunty, sportif appearance of the belt-wearer with the comfortable, homespun look of the suspender-wearer. I wish I could report that the results are foolproof and unimpeachable. Actually, they fall between two wears…. [It] is time to realize that though Wilder has made some extremely skillful, effective, and, in part, even penetrating films, he has never done anything first-rate. One reason for this is, probably, insufficient...