One, Two, Three (1961)

It took me a while to understand the reason for this movie's title. The story is based pretty loosely on a Ferenc Molnár play by the same title in Hungarian. Both use the counting briefly in dialog to indicate a hurry, which befits a His Girl Friday-like pace. In light of that, I would have omitted the commas and possibly added a comedic exclamation point, but too late now.

In West Berlin shortly before the wall construction, "Mac" McNamara (James Cagney) leads business operations and hopes to get promoted further, which would explain why he agrees to host Scarlett (Pamela Tiffin), freewheeling 17-year-old daughter of his boss (Howard St. John), at his home for two weeks. Most of the plot takes place two months later, when Scarlett is still there -- and has just eloped with avid communist Otto (Horst Buchholz). Fearing a blacklisting when her father finds out in the near future, Mac tries to get Otto put away for the long haul. Then he learns that Scarlett is pregnant, so it would be better to give Otto a Pygmalion treatment in a matter of hours....

I might as well tell you what company Mac works for: Coca-Cola. Yep, one of the few fiction flicks with a prominent role for a real brand. This caused conflict with Joan Crawford, who was on the Pepsi-Cola board of directors, so Billy Wilder compromised with several Pepsi references.

Wilder had already greatly amused me with communism-slamming Ninotchka. This outing could be seen as a little gentler in some ways, as when Otto's critiques of capitalism sound authentic, but a trio of Soviet reps are still pretty clownish. Throw in the unwelcome habitual heel clicks of Mac's loyal assistant (Hanns Lothar) and I couldn't help thinking of Mel Brooks.

I'm undecided on how well the humor holds up, particularly in light of the ladies' roles. Scarlett is an insufferable ditz, not so much for swiftly marrying a roaring red (I didn't feel that way about Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof) as for having gaping holes in her knowledge and little consideration of what she gets herself and others into. Then there's Mac's competent but impressionable, nubile secretary (Liselette Pulver), all too willing to let him cheat on his wife, Phyllis (Arlene Francis), to some degree. But Phyllis isn't such a bimbo. She's quite the snarker, long suspects Mac's infidelity, and half-hopes that he does lose his job so the family won't either keep moving around the world or go their separate ways.

Well, from what I've seen, all the gags would have been passable in Hollywood a decade or two ago, and many viewers would still like them. For my part, I laughed out loud a few times in the hectic third act, which is rare when I watch alone. I never knew Cagney could do comedy so well. Too bad he found this one such an ordeal, partly from the rapid-fire lines, that he retired.

OTT was on AFI's short list for 100 Years...100 Laughs. I like it better than many of the finalists.