A blast from the past. University of Alabama at Bham, June 2003

Neural Networks class. Kevin Reily, the professor.
Drinks too much coffee and laughs to his own jokes.
We never understood his jokes, but we liked him.

He was lecturing and I was giggling, unable to control my laughter.
My friends wanted to know. I showed them. They didnt like.

I was reading script of the movie, "The Apartment" by Billy Wilder.

Love you, Billy.

                   THE APARTMENT  

                        by

               Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond




                      
A DESK COMPUTER

A man's hand is punching out a series of figures on the
keyboard.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            On November first, 1959, the
            population of New York City was
            8,042,783.  if you laid all these
            people end to end, figuring an
            average height of five feet six and
            a half inches, they would reach
            from Times Square to the outskirts
            of Karachi, Pakistan.  I know facts
            like this because I work for an
            insurance company --

THE INSURANCE BUILDING - A WET, FALL DAY

It's a big mother, covering a square block in lower
Manhattan, all glass and aluminum, jutting into the leaden
sky.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            -- Consolidated Life of New York.
            We are one of the top five companies
            in the country -- last year we
            wrote nine-point-three billion
            dollars worth of policies.  Our
            home office has 31,259 employees --
            which is more than the entire
            population of Natchez, Mississippi,
            of Gallup, New Mexico.

INT. NINETEENTH FLOOR

Acres of gray steel desk, gray steel filing cabinets, and
steel-gray faces under indirect light.  One wall is lined
with glass-enclosed cubicles for the supervisory personnel.
It is all very neat, antiseptic, impersonal.  The only human
tough is supplied by a bank of IBM machines, clacking away
cheerfully in the background.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            I work on the nineteenth floor --
            Ordinary Policy Department -
            Premium Accounting Division -
            Section W -- desk number 861.
DESK 861

Like every other desk, it has a small name plate attached to
the side.  This one reads C.C. BAXTER.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            My name is C.C. Baxter - C. for
            Calvin, C. for Clifford -- however,
            most people call me Bud. I've been
            with Consolidated Life for three
            years and ten months.  I started in
            the branch office in Cincinnati,
            then transferred to New York.  My
            take-home pay is $94.70 a week, and
            there are the usual fringe benefits.

BAXTER is about thirty, serious, hard-working, unobtrusive.
He wears a Brooks Brothers type suit, which he bought
somewhere on Seventh Avenue, upstairs.  There is a stack of
perforated premium cards in front of him, and he is totaling
them on the computing machine.  He looks off.

ELECTRIC WALL CLOCK

It shows 5:19.  With a click, the minute hand jumps to 5:20,
and a piercing bell goes off.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            The hours in our department are
            8:50 to 5:20 --

FULL SHOT - OFFICE

Instantly all work stops.  Papers are being put away,
typewriters and computing machines are covered, and everybody
starts clearing out.  Within ten seconds, the place is
empty -- except for Bud Baxter, still bent over his work,
marooned in a sea of abandoned desks.

                         BUD (V.O.)
            -- they're staggered by floors, so
            that sixteen elevators can handle
            the 31,259 employees without a
            serious traffic jam.  As for
            myself, I very often stay on at the
            office and work for an extra hour
            or two -- especially when the
            weather is bad.  It's not that I'm
            overly ambitious -- it's just a way
            of killing time, until it's all
            right for me to go home.
            You see, I have this little problem
            with my apartment --

                                            DISSOLVE TO: 

Read the script here....