Uno, due, tre!

The most hilarant film never watched. The Wilder's chef d'Oeuvre, will be remembered as one of the ten best films on the story of the seventh art it must be rated eleven over ten if there is justice on this earth

When I saw this one during its first-run release, I recall finding its relentless pace rather irritating and wasn't savvy enough at the time, I guess, to catch everything that Billy Wilder and his scriptwriters packed so tightly into its running time.

But it was shown (letterboxed - "The only way to fly!") on Turner Classic Movies the other night and I quite enjoyed it, since it may now be enhanced somewhat at today's distant remove from the politics and the contemporary references of its period.

Cagney's performance is really amazing and it's not so surprising that this was his last major film role on the big screen. He must have been exhausted when filming wrapped!

The rest of the cast seems to be thoroughly in the service of what Wilder intended, which certainly wasn't subtlety, to say the least. And the production values and behind-the-scenes contributions (especially Andre Previn's witty score) are Class "A" all the way (except for that flat-looking studio mock-up of the air terminal interior, apparently necessitated by problems that couldn't have been foreseen).

It's not Wilder's best but it's a cut above (and then some) so much of the stuff that passes for comedy on the multiplex screens today.

C.R. 'Mac' MacNamara (James Cagney) is a Coca-Cola exec in charge of the West Berlin operations. Tension is rising across the Iron Curtain. It's a little over a year before the start of the Berlin Wall. He's trying to introduce Coke to the East. The communists want the secret formula. There is his sexy secretary Fräulein Ingeborg. His wife wants a quiet life in Atlanta. His boss dismisses expanding into Russia and asks Mac to care for his clueless party-girl daughter Scarlett Hazeltine.

The talk is fast-paced. The humor is broad and full of Wilder wordplay. Cagney is an unrelenting engine. He is buzzing with energy and I half-expected him to explode in song and dance. The machine gun dialog is non-stop and can get tiring at some point. This is a feat of performance from the great Cagney.

One, Two, Three is from the fertile mind of Billy Wilder where Cold War politics gets reduced to the absurd. This film is so fast and so funny it's only a few steps from Monty Python.

For what was and what should have remained his swan song to the world of film James Cagney heads the cast in this. He's the man in charge of Coca-Cola's operations in Germany which is headquartered in West Berlin and he's had a lovely little present dumped in his lap. The daughter of the CEO of Coca-Cola is in Europe and now she's in Germany and he's expected to watch out for her. The daughter is played by Pamela Tiffin and she is one of the biggest airheads ever portrayed on the screen. She's fallen big time for a German kid played by Horst Bucholtz. They've gotten married.

Bucholtz is a kid who's real good at spouting all kinds of left wing slogans without delving to deeply into their meanings. He's a Communist and that drives Cagney nuts and if it drives Cagney nuts, Tiffin's father is sure to go over the top. Cagney takes it upon himself to get Bucholtz arrested on the East Berlin side as an American spy.

Of course a small memento of their married life has developed inside Tiffin so now Cagney has a real problem. He's got to get Bucholtz back and turn him into a money grubbing capitalist in his image. The frantic pace at which this is attempted, racing against the clock when Tiffin's father played by Howard St. John arrives in Berlin is what the rest of the film is about.

Wilder has a ball reducing the Cold War to its basic absurdities. The USA is symbolized by James Cagney who thinks the whole world will become America if only enough Coca-Cola is peddled. Cagney comes real close to proving it so.

The Communists come out far worse. Karl Marx's world always looked nice on paper, but always has had a real problem being converted into a functioning state. The Russians are also good at spouting the party line, but in One, Two, Three, Wilder shows how very easily they can be influenced by some of life's most elemental things and I don't mean Coca-Cola.

Cagney did not always get along with Wilder, but both men were professional enough to bury certain creative differences. Cagney was kind and patient with Tiffin who was getting her first real break in film. However he grew to positively loath Horst Bucholtz. In his memoirs which came out in the 1970s, Bucholtz was the only colleague who Cagney had anything really critical to say about.

During the middle of the film being shot, the Russians stopped the flow of traffic from West and East Berlin. Some shots had to be redone around the Brandenburg Gate, a whole set had to be constructed. I suppose a well trained cinema professional could spot the shots where the real and the fake Brandeburg were used. I sure can't. The following year, the Berlin Wall was built, so Wilder got his film done just in time.

Arlene Francis plays Cagney's exasperated wife and she of What's My Line does just fine. Cagney made an appearance on that show just before shooting started and gave the picture a big old plug.

The laughs come pretty fast and furious as James Cagney struggles mightily to prevent the arrival of "another bouncing, baby, Bolshevik."

Howard Hawks usually gets the palm for the fastest dialogue in comedies but Wilder probably ties him here. This must be one of the funniest comedies to come out of Hollywood, at least during the sound era. The gags come fast -- and thick. If one doesn't work you don't have time to be disappointed because the next one is already underway.

It's one of those movies in which the gags would be spoiled if they were described to a person who hadn't yet seen the film. For the most part they are tied closely to the plot and often build on one another. But I'm compelled to give one example. Cagney is an executive in Berlin and his first-hand man is Schlemmer. Schlemmer has a habit of clicking his heels before and after addressing Cagney. At one point Cagney chews him out and asks him, "just between us," what Schlemmer did in the war. "I was in the underground," says Schlemmer. "Oh, the resistance?" "No, the underground. The subway. I was a conductor." Cagney says supiciously, "And I suppose you never were a supporter of Adolf." Schlemmer: "Adolf who? You see, I was always in the underground. They never told us anything down there."

The dialogue is shouted rather than spoken. Heels are clicked, people leap to attention, fingers are snapped, orders are flung about. The only person who doesn't run around frantically is Lilo Pulver who does not have to run to attract anyone's attention. She can simply stand still and get the job done. She's Cagney's secretary and tells him she's thinking of getting a job elsewhere as a translator. "Don't forget I am bilingual." "Don't I know it," Cagney mutters ruefully.

But I won't go on because I'll just wind up giving away more gags. Check the trivia entries too. This was Cagney's last major role and one of Wilder's best comedies. It's simply hilarious and not to be missed.