One, Two, Three (1961)

Set in Berlin just before the wall separating East and West Berlin was put up, the head executive (James Cagney) of Coca Cola in Berlin is saddled with watching over his American boss's daughter (Pamela Tiffin giving the best performance in the film as a ditzy Southern belle) during her stay in Berlin. But when she runs off and gets married to an East German communist (Horst Buchholz), he must act quickly to do some damage control. Based on the play EGY, KETTO, HAROM by Ferenc Molnar (LILIOM) and directed by Billy Wilder. The movie is a frantic farce that is exhausting to sit through and at times feels like a two hour commercial for Coca-Cola. Still, Wilder manages to deftly shoot some arrows at both communism and capitalism. Cagney delivers a blustery performance, spitting out his rat-a-tat-tat dialog without taking a breath until you simply give in out of fatigue. The film shows the dangers of topicality in cinema. No doubt the Khrushchev or the Huntley and Brinkley references drew guffaws in 1961 but they're more likely to receive silence today. Andre Previn fills the soundtrack with blasts of Wagner and Khachaturian while Daniel Fapp does the wide screen Panavision lensing. The performances are good with the exception of Buchholz who shouts all his lines without variation. With Arlene Francis as Cagney's wisecracking wife, Liselotte Pulver (Sirk's A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE) as a sexy secretary, Red Buttons, Leon Askin and Hanns Lothar, very funny as Cagney's put upon assistant.