During the golden age of the Hollywood studio system, where major studios produced hundreds of films a year, the concept of an "auteur" director (as we understand it now) didn't really apply. That's not to say that there weren't great idiosyncratic artists given freedom to choose the projects they wanted and pursue specific aesthetic or thematic interests - Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps the obvious example - but for the most part, a major director under contract to a studio was mostly led by the demands of the studio itself. This might sound counterproductive to the development of artistic expression or voice, but looking back at this period, we can see how the great directors of this system crafted a distinct style of their own across projects of different tones, styles, and genres. Any artist working over a long period of time will being to develop a voice of their own, even if many of those works are made under commission.
Chief among these classic Hollywood filmmakers was Billy Wilder, a Polish-Jewish immigrant who moved to the United States in the 1930s during the rise of the Nazis and became one of Hollywood's most important filmmakers. Over his career, he directed nearly 30 films, many of which he also co-wrote, and earned seven Academy Awards along the way. The latest director-themed set from Imprint, 'Directed by Billy Wilder', offers a terrific overview of Wilder's work through three films, each distinct from the other but, collectively, capturing the unique qualities that made Wilder such a remarkable filmmaker.
I thought I didn't know Wilder's work as well as I should before launching into this box set. In retrospect, especially watching the documentary 'Billy Wilder Speak' included in the set, I realised just how many great, great films I had seen with Wilder's name in the credits, chief among them 'Sunset Boulevard' (1950), 'The Apartment' (1960) and 'Sabrina' (1954). From those three alone, you get a sense of how easily Wilder was able to move between genres. The three films offered here - 'The Lost Weekend' (1945), 'Stalag 17' (1953) and 'Some Like It Hot' (1959) - are a likewise eclectic bunch, but much like the excellent 'Cinema of Powell and Pressburger' sets, we can use these films to extract some important commonalities.
'The Lost Weekend', which won the Oscar for Best Picture and garnered Wilder awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay (with key collaborator Charles Brackett), presents a shattering portrait of alcoholism and addiction, often in a frank manner that still feels confronting over 80 years later. Don Birnam (Ray Millard, who also won an Oscar for the role) is a writer struggling to shake the bottle despite the best efforts of his frustrated brother Wick (Phillip Terry) and girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman). He avoids taking a sober weekend away with Wick, instead locking himself in his brother's apartment and spiralling into a whiskey-fuelled drunken nightmare.
What is so immediately arresting about 'The Lost Weekend' is how brutally honest it is, even down to refusing to paint Don as some sort of fallen angel. The craft of the film is impeccable, but it's also harsh and unforgiving, with an undercurrent of dark humour. There would also be the risk that such a sedentary premise would stall any dramatic action, but 'The Lost Weekend' moves with a steady determination from one moment of collapse to the next. It's a remarkable balancing of tones, almost a magic trick: we can feel pity and repulsion for Don at once, especially as his quest for whiskey leads him to despicable, desperate choices.
The undercurrent of dark humour is the first thing we can extract here as key to Wilder's style. As harrowing as the film often gets, he understands the need for bursts of humour. They not only provide moments of release that prepare us for further misfortune, but also a wry irony. Even Don can laugh at his own mistakes, which makes him all the more human. This is immensely important to Wilder as a filmmaker, especially when we look at "unlikeable" protagonists such as here and in 'Sunset Boulevard'. These films wouldn't work if the human failings didn't come from human anxieties, and our ability to pity Don comes from the palpable sense of why he drinks (and wisely not some sort of great tragedy, but a disappointment in himself). The last minute almost bungles the whole thrust of the film, but you can forgive Wilder to an extent. It is the 1940s, and this brutally honest depiction of alcoholism would have been deeply shocking (and groundbreaking) at the time. You can forgive him for wanting to tie things together with a bit of a bow at the end.
'SOME LIKE IT HOT' TRAILER
That wry humour and investment in our common humanity come out in full force in 'Stalag 17', which sees Wilder move from an apartment in New York to a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp in 1943. Adapted by Wilder and Edwin Blum from the Broadway play by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, the film focuses on one particular barracks in the Stalag 17 camp, occupied entirely by captured U.S. soldiers. For the most part, the film offers a fly-on-the-wall view of how these men survive under such difficult conditions, with Wilder's great fascination being the small rituals and relationships they establish to keep themselves sane. Driving the film is the suspicion that someone in the barracks is leaking information to the head of the camp, Colonel von Scherbach (played by legendary filmmaker Otto Preminger), and suspicion is placed squarely on the shoulders of Sefton (William Holden, who also won an Oscar for his performance here), the black marketeer who seems to be mostly concerned with himself. As tensions rise, suspicions build to breaking point, with the true snitch still secreting messages out to the guards.
'Stalag 17' is billed as a comedy, which set me up for a surprise when watching it. The film has mountains of charm, and the supporting cast is full of distinct characters with backstories written into every gesture, but like 'The Lost Weekend', that humour comes from the need to humanise these men. In the same way that 'The Lost Weekend' would have beeb unbearable without those flashes of black humour, 'Stalag 17' would not be as moving as it is without the raucous games these prisoners play on one another and on their captors. This film is an even greater demonstration of Wilder's mastery of tone, knowing exactly when to put the breaks on the narrative and let us sit in the moments of melancholy. The film is emotionally open and generous, with some of the most touching moments coming from small gestures of physical affection between the men. When moments of violence or distress burst out, they sting all the more because of the space we've been given to know these men.
If there is another common link between 'The Lost Weekend' and 'Stalag 17', it's the post-war wrestle over what constitutes a good man, or how you become one in the face of insurmountable challenge. In the former, it's the whiskey bottle and Don's own self-hatred. In the latter, it's the constant surveillance and threat of violence from the Nazis, threatening the safety of their camaraderie with one another. If we place this film back amongst the others mentioned, we see a theme of survival, where the greatest thing at cost is ones own humanity.
Survival also drives the third film in this set, where we move from the tragedy of 'The Lost Weekend' through the warm-hearted melancholy of 'Stalag 17' and straight into the raucous anarchy of one of Wilder's masterpieces, 'Some Like It Hot'. On the run from Chicago gangsters in 1921, musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) trick their way into joining an all-female band as Josephine and Daphne as the band heads to Miami. Things get complicated when both men fall head-over-heels for the band's lead singer and ukulele player Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), and both men find themselves going to great lengths to woo her (while disguised as women) and stay safe from the gangsters closing in.
'Some Like It Hot' is an incandescent comedy classic, with every second crafted to within an inch of its life. Here, Wilder is at the height of his powers, and while the film doesn't have the pathos of the other films in the set, it has the same winning combination of astute humour and an intense fascination with human behaviour. The magic trick here is that, as absurd as the film gets, Joe and Jerry's actions always make sense, their motivations as abundantly clear as their delusions. Sugar Kane is so all over the place, caught in her own struggles with alcohol and determined to find a rich husband and stop falling for saxophone players, but she finds her match and a deep connection with "Josephine" and "Daphne", two "women" willing to take her seriously (even if she doesn't suspect why).
So much of what makes 'Some Like It Hot' so funny and so electric is the masks all these characters wear to either deceive others or protect themselves. This again is another aspect of Wilder as a filmmaker that runs through all these films, that need for self-protection that can lead, in some cases, to self-sabotage. All the characters know what they want, but they place obstacles in front of themselves that get in the way. Sefton is maybe the most opaque example, but even he builds walls that keep him from emotionally connecting with his fellow prisoners. For Joe in 'Some Like It Hot', he puts on mask after mask, pushing himself further and further away from himself to win Sugar Kane, while Jerry's mask lands him in a situation he (and gleefully, we) don't see coming. The heralded final moments of 'Some Like It Hot' only work so damn well because of how actively the deceptions have been built and how satisfying it is to see them come crashing down.
This 'Directed By Billy Wilder' set from Imprint would be an excellent addition to any collection if only for the three classic films included (two of them benefiting from excellent restorations), but perhaps by virtue of how eclectic a filmmaker Billy Wilder was, they also offer a great starting point for diving into his body of work. Not only do I want to revisit the classics I'd forgotten I'd seen, but I'm also keen to fill in even more gaps in my knowledge. I'll certainly be revisiting these three brilliant films many more times in the future.
So much of what makes 'Some Like It Hot' so funny and so electric is the masks all these characters wear to either deceive others or protect themselves. This again is another aspect of Wilder as a filmmaker that runs through all these films, that need for self-protection that can lead, in some cases, to self-sabotage.
PICTURE AND SOUND
This set makes use of the best available elements to Imprint, with 'The Lost Weekend' on Blu-ray and 'Stalag 17' and 'Some Like It Hot' on 4K UHD and Blu-ray.
'The Lost Weekend' is the weakest of the three transfers, the 1080p 1.33:1 transfer certainly showing its age. I have a copy of the 2012 Masters of Cinema release from Eureka, but a more recent Kino Lorber from 2020 boasted a more recent 4K restoration. Comparing this release with images from the 2020 disc and the 2012 disc itself, they all look very similar, exhibiting the same level of dirt and film damage. The black-and-white image lacks in clarity at points, and the overall image is in need of some gentle stabilisation. It's a pity, because the film's visual language is so important.
'Stalag 17' is a massive jump in quality, with a gorgeous 2160p 1.37:1 transfer with Dolby Vision, likely the same from the recent Kino Lorber release in 2023. The kinds of issues that plague the transfer for 'The Lost Weekend' are completely absent here, with a beautifully sharp, dirt-free image. A careful balance is struck between the black-and-white tones, and some shots exhibit a beautiful level of detail, especially in close-ups of the cast. This is one of the best 4K discs for a black-and-white film I've seen in a while, on par with 'The Small Back Room' in the second Powell and Pressburger set. The 1080p disc included also makes use of the same excellent restoration.
'Some Like It Hot' is just as impressive a restoration and transfer, the prestige title in this collection. I don't have either the 2022 Kino Lorber or the 2025 Criterion 4K releases to compare this one to, but the 2160p 1.85:1 transfer here is luminous, with tremendous detail and texture. There's hardly any sign of print damage or dirt, and the film grain is evenly distributed across the image, preserving the original look while delivering a level of clarity I haven't seen from this film before. Comparing this transfer to the 1080p 1.85:1 transfer included on the Blu-ray (also excellent) demonstrates just what a difference the extra resolution makes. Again, a tremendous example of how beautiful these black-and-white classics can look in 4K.
Much like the video transfers, the audio reflects the condition of the material offered. Both 'The Lost Weekend' and 'Stalag 17' offer LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks, but the latter falls short in the comparison without proper restoration. It's still a clear, balanced track, but it doesn't have the richness offered by the 'Stalag 17' track. 'Some Like It Hot' also has an LPCM 2.0 track, but the disc defaults to the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Both are excellent, but for those wanting a fuller sound experience (particularly with the many musical sequences in the film), the 5.1 track will likely be the winner. All three films also come with English subtitles.
SPECIAL FEATURES
As has become standard with Imprint and these lavish box sets, the discs in this release make use of both pre-existing archival material and a few newly produced extras. They include (wth new features and those on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray noted)...
THE LOST WEEKEND
Both the Eureka and Kino Lorber releases included the Screen Guild Theatre radio adaptation and the theatrical trailer, with the KL release also including the Trailers From Hell featurette. What we lose from the Eureka set are a special introduction from director Alex Cox and a three-part program on Wilder (which uses the same interview featured in 'Billy Wilder Speaks'), and from the KL set, an additional audio commentary.
STALAG 17
This carries a number of extras over from the 2023 Kino Lorber release. These include the Erdman, Stratton and Bevan commentary, and the 'From Reality to Screen' and 'Real Heroes' featurettes, all of which were produced for an earlier Paramount DVD release of the film in 2006. There was also a Masters of Cinema release from Eureka in 2015, which included an interview with film scholar Neil Sinyard, not included on this Imprint release. All three include the theatrical trailer.
SOME LIKE IT HOT
There have been a number of major home video releases of the film, chiefly the 4K UHD release from Criterion in 2025. Apart from the three making-of featurettes and the trailer (which are common across all Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases), there's no other cross-over with this Imprint release. The Nostalgic Look Back and archival commentary were also included on the 4K UHD Kino Lorber release from 2022 and the MGM Blu-ray release from 2011, with the 'Virtual Hall of Memories' featurette also coming from that release.
It's a real smorgasbord of material, but while there's far less newly produced material than on the other recent Imprint sets we've reviewed, the archival material adds a wealth of additional context for the making of the film. As you can see from comparisons with previous releases, there are also a number of archival documentaries not previously included on other editions, which really add value to the set.
The collection also includes an additional disc with the documentary 'Billy Wilder Speaks' (2006), directed by Oscar winner Volker Sclöndorff and Gisela Grischow. Essentially a rare extended interview with Wilder before his death, it offers a candid overview of his career, including how his response to the Second World War and the Holocaust shaped both the work he made and his dealings in Hollywood. Presented in standard definition in 1.33:1 with LPCM 2.0 Dual Mono audio and released by Kino Lorber, it's a welcome addition to the set, and is accompanied by the 2016 documentary 'Billy Wilder: Nobody's Perfect' [54:21], directed by Clara Kuperberg, a more standard-fare documentary that also makes use of Sclöndorff's interview with Wilder.
Along with the four disc cases housed in a handsomely designed hard-box, the set also comes with a 168 page hardcover book with an eclectic mix of material included: