Five Reasons Why Billy Wilder is the Best Classic Hollywood Director!

Today when people think of classic Hollywood movies and their directors they probably think Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho, John Ford and Stagecoach, Elia Kazan and On the Waterfront, Charlie Chaplin and City Lights as well as John Huston and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre to name a few. While Wilder's name may come up quite often I think he should be the most remembered, even if he is already one the most recognised names among cinephiles.

So here are five reasons why I think Billy Wilder, director of such movies as Double Indemnity and Some Like it Hot, is the best Golden Age Hollywood director...

1. Stories he wrote are timeless

Over the course of his career in Hollywood, Wilder directed 26 films and he wrote or co-wrote everyone of them. Even early on in his career with films like Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend he picked topics that aren't confined to its 1940s setting and both can easily have taken place today. Even later on in his career movies hid movies like Some Like it Hot and The Apartment it still manages to be the case.

The Lost Weekend is about a man (played by Ray Milland) who has alcohol problems, an issue that is unfortunately still relevant today. Double Indemnity is two people trying to scam the system. Sunset Blvd. tells the story of a silent age actress trying to make a comeback. Witness for the Prosecution is a court proceeding movie that still remains riveting to this day.

There were obviously many hundreds of movies made by the studios in those days and many have failed to be released on the home video market or have been released at a dismal quality. Part of that reason would be because many of those films don't feel relevant any more, they're filled with the kind of writing that many of today's movie are made of, whether that be from characters that are caricatures from the period or just a plain basic story that is easily forgotten. However Wilder managed to stay away from that kind of thing throughout his career and in turn his movies have lasted a lot longer.

If you take any of his films and apply them to the setting of 2016, ask yourself. Could this be set in 2016? The answer is probably yes.

2. Movies are still entertaining

Even if his movies are still relevant today, it's also important for the audiences to still be engrossed in the movie and I assure they still are engrossing films. This is thanks to his writing. He created (with his co-writers) stories for the ages that come with a wide range of emotions behind it. Some of his movies like Double Indemnity and Five Graves to Cairo have great scenes of suspense, others like Some Like it Hot and The Apartment have scenes that will leave you in stitches of laughter.

Linking back to my first point, his movies are still entertaining in part of their timelessness in their story, in part because he didn't layer it down with period elements too much. This gives his movies a fresh feeling and it makes the audience think it could easily be possible to day (of course with a few modern updates, like mobiles phones).

3. Wide range genres

If you want an audience to feel great emotion in a movie, no matter the genre, you need great characters to takes us through the story. Wilder's characters always feel grounded and they feel like people with a wide range of emotions and feelings which stand out to this day. He was also able to write a wide range of characters through out his body of work. Whether that be drunks like Don Birnam from The Lost Weekend, stars of the silent age who aren't famous any more like Norma Desmond from Sunset Blvd. or bachelor office workers like C.C. Baxter from The Apartment. His work was also supported by the roles for women he wrote, they are often women who can hold their own, compared to other films from the 40s, 50s and 60s which featured women who relied on the male characters.

Because Wilder had a great range in genres through out his body of work and it always made his films less predictable. After doing a noir film in the form of Double Indemnity his did a film chronicling a drunk followed by a gramophone salesman. By keeping his variety wide he doesn't become a typecast director the way Hitchcock, Ford or other directors did.

4. Always put story first

Many directors of the era, like Hitchcock and Welles, stride for beauty, perfection and

innovation to tell their stories. Instead what Wilder did so well, was he kept the cinematography simple and he let people indulge on the story rather then techniques used to present it.

Wilder was also one of the last Hollywood directors to permanently move to colour. The Apartment was the last film completely in black and white to win the Best Picture Oscar until 2011's The Artist. Regardless for the late change his work as a director always complimented his work as a writer and it's something many writer-directors struggle to get a balance between.

5. Six Oscars (plus a honorary one)

Simply put Billy Wilder is the most awarded person at the Oscars for working on feature films, and not in the technical categories. Francis Ford Coppola won five, Woody Allen has four and Alfred Hitchcock received an honorary award. He won his first two for his writing (shared with Raymond Chandler) and directing on the best picture winner, 'The Lost Weekend'. His next Oscar was for Sunset Blvd for his screenplay, of which was co-wrote with Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.. His last three were for The Apartment. Winning for producing and directing as well as co writing the screenplay with I.A.L. Diamond. The Apartment also marked the first time someone wrote, directed and produced a movie that won all three at the Oscars. Even with six competitive Oscars, they couldn't resist giving him one more with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988.

Along with the six Oscar wins Wilder also received another eight screenplay nominations and another six directing nominations.

The Oscars weren't the only people to admire Wilder's work. He won four Golden Globes, a BAFTA, honorary Golden Bear, Grand Prize of the Festival (later known as Palme d'Or) in Cannes for The Lost Weekend, a runner up prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival along with a career one too from the festival, one DGA award plus six WGA awards.

Critics too have hailed several of Wilder's works as masterpieces. In the 2012 Sight and Sound critics poll, Some Like it Hot was ranked #45, Sunset Blvd at #65 and The Apartment at #141 all made the top 250.

Simply, Wilder has the awards to prove that he is an admired director not only by successful by terms of box office intake but that he has a great skill in writing and directing that few of us could ever dream of.

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Well those are five reasons why I think Billy Wilder is the best Golden Age Hollywood director. I do have some more reasons, like his repertoire of actors, but I think I might save them for part two. But who is your favorite director from the era and why? Also what is your favorite Wilder film?