The Apartment

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:

STREET IN THE WEST SIXTIES - EVENING

Bud, wearing a weather-beaten Ivy League raincoat and a

narrow-brimmed brown hat, comes walking slowly down the

street skirting the puddles on the sidewalk. He stops in

front of a converted brownstone, looks up.

BUD (V.O.)

I live in the West Sixties - just

half a block from Central Park. My

rent is $84 a month. It used to be

eighty until last July when Mrs.

Lieberman, the landlady, put in a

second-hand air conditioning unit.

The windows on the second floor are lit, but the shades are

drawn. From inside drifts the sound of cha cha music.

BUD (V.O.)

It's a real nice apartment -

nothing fancy -- but kind of

cozy -- just right for a bachelor.

The only problem is - I can't

always get in when I want to.

INT. THE APARTMENT - EVENING

What used to be the upstairs parlor of a one-family house in

the early 1900's has been chopped up into living room,

bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. The wallpaper is faded, the

carpets are threadbare, and the upholstered furniture could

stand shampooing. There are lots of books, a record player,

stacks of records, a television set (21 inches and 24

payments), unframed prints from the Museum of Modern Art

(Picasso, Braque, Klee) tacked up on the walls.

Only one lamp is lit, for mood, and a cha cha record is

spinning around on the phonograph. On the coffee table in

front of the couch are a couple of cocktail glasses, a

pitcher with some martini dregs, an almost empty bottle of

vodka, a soup bowl with a few melting ice cubes at the

bottom, some potato chips, an ashtray filled with cigar

stubs and lipstick-stained cigarette butts, and a woman's

handbag.

MR. KIRKEBY, a dapper, middle-aged man, stands in front of

the mirror above the fake fireplace, buttoning up his vest.

He does not notice that the buttons are out of alignment.

KIRKEBY:

(calling off)

Come on, Sylvia. It's getting late.

SYLVIA, a first baseman of a dame, redheaded and saftig,

comes cha cha-ing into the room, trying to fasten a necklace

as she hums along with the music. She dances amorously up

to Kirkeby.

KIRKEBY:

Cut it out, Sylvia. We got to get

out of here.

He helps her with the necklace, then turns off the phonograph.

SYLVIA:

What's the panic? I'm going to

have another martooni.

She crosses to the coffee table, starts to pour the remnants

of the vodka into the pitcher.

KIRKEBY:

Please, Sylvia! It's a quarter to

nine!

SYLVIA:

(dropping slivers of

ice into the pitcher)

First you can't wait to get me up

here, and now -- rush, rush, rush!

Makes a person feel cheap.

KIRKEBY:

Sylvia -- sweetie -- it's not

that -- but I promised the guy I'd

be out of here by eight o'clock,

positively.

SYLVIA:

(pouring martini)

What guy? Whose apartment is this,

anyway?

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