The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their first screen pairing

Billy Wilder's 1966 comedy tries to tempt lightning into striking twice by redecorating The Apartment as a satire about the great American pastime: lawsuits.  As in that 1960 tragicomic masterpiece, Jack Lemmon plays a man whose general decency is all too easily swept under the rug when it gets in the way of the more powerful men in his life.  Although it can't play in the same league as Wilder's greatest films, it's nevertheless a nimble comedy that introduced one of cinema's great comedy duos by pitting Jack Lemmon against Walter Matthau for the first time.

The Major and the Minor (1941)

Ray Milland, "the Major," and Ginger Rogers, "the Minor"

The films of Hollywood's golden age seldom have much shock value for viewers today. After all, the Hays office was there to make sure things never got too interesting, handing out last minute marriage licenses at all the right moments so things stayed respectable. Thankfully, the directors of the period were nothing if not inventive, so a surprising amount of scandal seems to have flown just under the radar. There are times, though, when our own standards today have become more conservative, so plot twists the Hays office didn't blink an eye at are downright shocking today. Enter Billy Wilder's US directorial debut, The Major and the Minor, a patriotic war-years comedy about a military school instructor who falls in love with a twelve year old girl.