One, Two, Three is overwrought, tasteless, and offensive—a comedy that pulls out laughs the way a catheter draws urine…. [It] was actually shot in Berlin and Munich (where the Brandenberg Gate was reconstructed), but the real location is the locker-room where tired salesmen swap the latest variants of stale old jokes…. If you find these jokes fresh and funny, then by all means rush to see One, Two, Three, which will keep shouting them at you for two hours. It's like you-know-what hitting the fan. (p. 63)

In Hollywood it is now common to hear Billy Wilder called the world's greatest movie director. This judgment tells us a lot about Hollywood: Wilder hits his effects hard and sure; he's a clever, lively director whose work lacks feeling or passion or grace or beauty or elegance. His eye is on the dollar, or rather on success, on the entertainment...