“Things go better with Coke” — 1950s slogan for Coca-Cola
Plentiful jokes have been made over the years about Coca-Cola’s historical connection with cocaine.
Invented in 1885 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton, who crafted the original formula in his backyard, the soft drink’s recipe indeed contained cocaine in the form of an extract of the coca leaf. At the time, the drug was legal, often found in medicines, and considered safe in small amounts. But in 1901, facing racist social pressure as recreational cocaine use increased in the Black community, the soda manufacturer changed the beverage’s recipe and switched to “de-cocainized” coca leaves.
Or did it?
Considering the nonstop madcap adventures of West Berlin-based Coca-Cola executive C.R. “Mac” MacNamara (James Cagney) in co-writer/director Billy Wilder’s 1961 comedy One, Two, Three, one wonders if the film’s entire cast and crew might have been partaking in a bit of the old “original recipe.”
Regardless of what’s actually in those European soda bottles, the relentless pace of this under-seen gem (out Nov. 19 in a new special edition Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics) holds up phenomenally well 60-plus years after its release, as do its plethora of spoken and visual gags.
Though Wilder and his go-to co-writer I.A.L. Diamond weave zany comedy into Some Like It Hot and, to a lesser extent, The Apartment, they fully embrace this style in their follow-up to those Academy Award-winning films. One, Two, Three sadly proved Oscar-proof on the writing and directing front (cinematographer Daniel L. Fapp received the feature’s lone nomination, losing to Eugen Schüfftan for The Hustler in the soon-to-be-defunct B&W category), ushering in two decades of lesser Wilder movies, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and The Front Page. But the wholly committed energetic filmmaking on display allows this semi-outlier in the director’s oeuvre to stand with his more famous and lauded work.
Described in its trailers as an “explosive comedy hit,” One, Two, Three sets up viewers for steady zippy delights from its opening credits with an inspired use of Aram Khachaturyan’s rollicking “Sabre Dance.” These chaotic yet catchy sounds provide a fitting introduction to Mac, who draws us in and wears us down with his loud, spirited, and tireless approach to life.
Like a human shark, he’s constantly in motion, as if in fear that he’ll die if he stops moving, and even rare stationary moments at his desk phone are accompanied by amusing finger snaps as he barks out a series of orders into the receiver. While it’s a wonder Mac’s family and colleagues don’t take precautions and wear earplugs in his presence, his exaggerated mannerisms nevertheless fit seamlessly into his elevated surroundings.
This is a world where employees stand at attention in unison whenever Mac walks by, and underling Schlemmer (Hanns Lothar) struggles to let go of old Nazi-era habits like clicking his heels together in the presence of a superior, despite claiming zero involvement with (or even knowledge of) the Third Reich.
These percussive sensibilities likewise extend to the dialogue itself, which gives His Girl Friday a run for its money in the words-per-minute department. From Mac’s sexy secretary/fling Fräulein Ingeborg (Liselotte Pulver) to his long-suffering wife Phyllis (Arlene Francis) to the trio of East German reps who are key to getting Coca-Cola across the Iron Curtain, everyone in the ensemble excels at the rat-a-tat delivery.
Even Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin), the wayward teenage daughter of Mac’s boss whom the MacNamaras grudgingly welcome into their home, is just as motor-mouthed and uninterested in gumming up the film’s flow, albeit with a stereotypically honey-glazed Southern accent that inspires some hilarious Dixie-centric jabs from Mac.
Entertaining as this concerted race to the finish line proves, it wouldn’t be nearly as rich without the screenplay’s timely satirization of Cold War issues. Set just before the building of the Berlin Wall — whose construction forced the production to relocate to Munich — the film pokes fun at Communist ideology, cheaply-made Eastern Bloc automobiles, and the hypocrisies of a political system full of individuals slobbering for Western values (and excesses).
This political battle reaches its comedic and intellectual peak in a breakneck final act that finds Mac pulling every string possible to make the best of Scarlett’s elopement with East German revolutionary Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz) before Mr. Hazeltine arrives in a few hours. While Mac attempts to save everyone’s skin by showing this Communist interloper a taste of the good American life (if he’ll just sit still and take his capitalist medicine), Otto fights back with every ounce of Marxist propaganda stored in his cerebral cortex, resulting in a masterful showdown of opposing principles.
At various junctures in One, Two, Three, the infectious yet borderline exhausting style may have viewers feeling like they’ve been mowed down by the rapid-fire dialogue as if the banter was fired from Tommy Guns on loan from the 1930s and ’40s gangster pictures that made Cagney famous. Perhaps aware of this potential verbal massacre, Wilder and Diamond toss in references to their star’s greatest hits — namely Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Public Enemy — that mix in well and add a winking layer of wit to the already whip-smart script.
It all works marvelously together and remains easy to enjoy — no Tony Montana-sized mound of powder necessary.
KL Studio Classics’s new “One, Two, Three” Blu-ray is out November 19.
