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One, Two, Three is a 1961
1961 in film

The year 1961 in film involved some significant events....
 American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 comedy film directed by Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austrian-United States journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter, and film producer, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films....
 and written by I.A.L. Diamond, based on a one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnar
Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Moln?r was a Hungary dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar. He emigrated to the United States to escape the Nazi Germany persecution of Hungarian Jews during World War II....
. The comedy features James Cagney
James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American film star. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guy"s....
, Horst Buchholz
Horst Buchholz

Horst Werner Buchholz was a Germany actor, best remembered for his part in The Magnificent Seven. He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952-2002....
, Pamela Tiffin
Pamela Tiffin

Pamela Tiffin was an American film actor.The stunning brunette had several starring roles in American films in the early 1960s, including One, Two, Three; State Fair and Come Fly with Me ....
, Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis was an United States actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s....
, Leon Askin
Leon Askin

Leon Askin was an Austrian actor.Askin was born Leon Aschkenasy into a Jewish family in Vienna, the son of Malvine and Samuel Aschkenazy....
, Howard St. John
Howard St. John

Howard St. John was a Chicago-born character actor who specialized in unsympathetic roles. His work spanned Broadway theatre, film and television....
, and others. It would be Cagney's last film appearance until Ragtime
Ragtime (film)

Ragtime is a 1981 film based on the historical novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. The action takes place in and around New York City in the 1900?1909, and includes fictionalized references to actual people and events of the time....
, 23 years later.

The film is set in West Berlin
West Berlin

West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945....
 during the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, but before the construction of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a physical separation barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic , including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany....
, and politics is predominant in the setup.






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Encyclopedia


One, Two, Three is a 1961
1961 in film

The year 1961 in film involved some significant events....
 American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 comedy film directed by Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austrian-United States journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter, and film producer, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films....
 and written by I.A.L. Diamond, based on a one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnar
Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Moln?r was a Hungary dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar. He emigrated to the United States to escape the Nazi Germany persecution of Hungarian Jews during World War II....
. The comedy features James Cagney
James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American film star. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guy"s....
, Horst Buchholz
Horst Buchholz

Horst Werner Buchholz was a Germany actor, best remembered for his part in The Magnificent Seven. He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952-2002....
, Pamela Tiffin
Pamela Tiffin

Pamela Tiffin was an American film actor.The stunning brunette had several starring roles in American films in the early 1960s, including One, Two, Three; State Fair and Come Fly with Me ....
, Arlene Francis
Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis was an United States actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s....
, Leon Askin
Leon Askin

Leon Askin was an Austrian actor.Askin was born Leon Aschkenasy into a Jewish family in Vienna, the son of Malvine and Samuel Aschkenazy....
, Howard St. John
Howard St. John

Howard St. John was a Chicago-born character actor who specialized in unsympathetic roles. His work spanned Broadway theatre, film and television....
, and others. It would be Cagney's last film appearance until Ragtime
Ragtime (film)

Ragtime is a 1981 film based on the historical novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. The action takes place in and around New York City in the 1900?1909, and includes fictionalized references to actual people and events of the time....
, 23 years later.

The film is set in West Berlin
West Berlin

West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945....
 during the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, but before the construction of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a physical separation barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic , including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany....
, and politics is predominant in the setup. Diamond and Wilder's social satire
Satire

Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre; although, in practice, it is also found in the graphic arts and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, ideally with the intent to bring about improv...
 and sharp humor skewers targets on all sides of the divide — capitalist
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
s and communists, Americans, Germans, and Russians, men and women alike exhibit their own weaknesses and quirky foibles. As in Avanti!
Avanti!

Avanti! is a 1972 in film comedy directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill, Edward Andrews and Gianfranco Barra....
 (1972), the humour of the film is partly based on the contrast between people from different cultures.

Plot

C. R. "Mac" MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company, largest manufacturer, distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups in the world and is one of the largest corporations in the United States....
, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier (about which he is still bitter). After working on an arrangement to bring Coke across the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain

The Iron Curtain was the symbolic, ideological, and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991....
, Mac receives a call from his boss. Scarlett, the boss's hot-blooded 17-year-old 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, who happens to be an East German Communist with ardent "anti-Yankee" views. The socialist 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 Mac's boss is coming to check up on his 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
Stasi

The Ministry for State Security,...
, the East German secret police.

Under pressure from his stern and disapproving wife, and with the revelation that Scarlett is pregnant, Mac sets out to bring Otto back with the help of his Russian business associates. With the boss on the way, he finds that his only chance is to turn the fierce young man into a son-in-law in good standing — which means, among other things, making him a capitalist. In the end Mac meets his family at the airport, and to celebrate his promotion, offers to buy his family a Coke. Ironically, after handing out the soft drinks, he realizes upon inspection that instead of giving his family Coca-Cola, he actually bought them Pepsi-Cola.

Homages and references

  • The film makes several references to Cagney's earlier films, including a Cagney impression from Red Buttons
    Red Buttons

    Red Buttons was an American comedy and actor....
    , and the "grapefruit to the face" incident from The Public Enemy
    The Public Enemy

    The Public Enemy is a pre-Code Cinema of the United States crime film drama film film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman....
    . Cagney also refers to his contemporary Edward G. Robinson
    Edward G. Robinson

    Edward Goldenberg Robinson, Sr. was an honorary Academy Award-winning United States actor born in Romania. Although he has played a wide range of characters, he is best remembered for his roles as a gangster, most notably in his star-making film Little Caesar....
     by using his "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" line from Little Caesar
    Little Caesar (film)

    Little Caesar is a 1931 in film crime film made during the Pre-Code era which tells the story of a man who works his way up the ranks of the mob until he reaches its upper heights....
    , which was a contempory competitor of The Public Enemy.
  • Many events of the Cold War
    Cold War

    The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
     are mentioned such as the Berlin Airlift, and the Space Race
    Space Race

    File:Space race1.jpgThe Space Race was a competition of space exploration between the Soviet Union and the United States, which lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975....
    ; the movie even presages the future Cuban Missile Crisis
    Cuban Missile Crisis

    File:EXCOMM meeting, , 29 October 1962.jpgFile:Jupiter IRBM.jpgThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba that occurred in the early 1960s during the Cold War....
    .
  • Cagney's male (and former SS
    Schutzstaffel

    The , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the F?hrer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men, managed to exert as much political influence as th...
    ) assistant crossdresses
    Cross-dressing

    Cross-dressing is the act of wearing Clothes commonly associated with another gender role within a particular society. The usage of the term, the types of cross-dressing both in modern times and throughout history, an analysis of the behaviour, and historical examples are discussed in the article below....
     to deceive the Soviets, but gets men interested in him, just like Jack Lemmon
    Jack Lemmon

    'John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III' was an United States actor known principally for his comedic roles. He starred in over 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Days of Wine and Roses , Irma La Douce, The Odd Couple , The Out-of-Towners , Glengarry Glen Ross , The China Syndrome and JFK ....
     in Wilder's Some Like it Hot
    Some Like It Hot

    Some Like It Hot is an Cinema of the United States comedy film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon....
    .
  • A reference to Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy
    Yankee Doodle Dandy

    Yankee Doodle Dandy is a biopic about George M. Cohan, the actor-singer-dancer-playwright-songwriter-producer-theatre owner-director-choreographer known as "The Man Who Owns Broadway", starring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston and Richard Whorf, and featuring Irene Manning, George Tobias, Rosemary DeCamp and Jeanne Cagney....
     is the use of a Cuckoo Clock that played Yankee Doodle Dandy, complete with Uncle Sam with an American flag in his 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, during filming, he heard from a friend about to set off on a leisurely yachting trip.


Cast

  • James Cagney
    James Cagney

    James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American film star. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guy"s....
     as C.R. "Mac" MacNamara
  • Horst Buchholz
    Horst Buchholz

    Horst Werner Buchholz was a Germany actor, best remembered for his part in The Magnificent Seven. He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952-2002....
     as Otto Ludwig Piffl
  • Pamela Tiffin
    Pamela Tiffin

    Pamela Tiffin was an American film actor.The stunning brunette had several starring roles in American films in the early 1960s, including One, Two, Three; State Fair and Come Fly with Me ....
     as Scarlett Hazeltine
  • Arlene Francis
    Arlene Francis

    Arlene Francis was an United States actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What's My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s....
     as Phyllis MacNamara
  • Liselotte Pulver
    Liselotte Pulver

    Liselotte Pulver , sometimes credited as Lilo Pulver, is a Switzerland actress.Pulver was one of the stars of Cinema of Germany in the 1950s and 60s, where she often was cast as a tomboy....
     as Fräulein Ingeborg (Mac's secretary)
  • Howard St. John
    Howard St. John

    Howard St. John was a Chicago-born character actor who specialized in unsympathetic roles. His work spanned Broadway theatre, film and television....
     as Wendell P. Hazeltine
  • Hanns Lothar
    Hanns Lothar

    Hanns Lothar was a Germany film actor. He appeared in 36 films between 1948 in film and 1966 in film.He was born in Hannover, Germany and died in Hamburg, Germany....
     as Schlemmer (Mac's assistant and henchman)
  • Leon Askin
    Leon Askin

    Leon Askin was an Austrian actor.Askin was born Leon Aschkenasy into a Jewish family in Vienna, the son of Malvine and Samuel Aschkenazy....
     as Peripetchikoff
  • Ralf Wolter as Borodenko
  • Karl Lieffen
    Karl Lieffen

    Karl Lieffen was a Germany film actor. He appeared in over 140 films on screen and television between 1949 in film and 1998 in film.He was born in Ossek, Czechoslovakia and died in Starnberg, Germany....
     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


Soundtrack

  • Aram Khachaturian
    Aram Khachaturian

    Aram Khachaturian was a Soviet Union-Armenians composer whose works were often influenced by Armenian folk music....
    's lively Sabre Dance
    Sabre Dance

    The Sabre Dance is a Movement in the final act of the Armenians composer Aram Khachaturian's ballet Gayane, completed in 1942. It evokes a whirling war dance in an Armenian dance, where the dancers display their skill with sabres....
     marks the moments when Mac moves into energetic action.


Critical reception

The film won kudos from the staff at Variety
Variety (magazine)

Variety is a weekly entertainment trade newspaper founded in New York in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Hollywood, was founded by Silverman in 1933....
. 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."

Critic Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for over a quarter century. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters....
 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."

Awards

Nominations
  • Academy Awards
    Academy Awards

    The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers....
    : 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
    Writers Guild of America

    The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers around New York City....
    : WGA Award (Screen), Best Written American Comedy, Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond; 1962.


External links