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"ONE, TWO, THREE," MAKING ITS second appearance on the military motion picture circuit, is the longest, loudest — and funniest — burp ever brought to the screen.
Written, produced and directed by Billy Wilder (with an assist on the script from I.A.L. Diamond), the film relies on raucous, racy humor of the if-we-didn’t-get-you-with-the-last-old-chestnut-just-stick-around-for-another-10 seconds variety.
It’s strictly corn on the cobblestone streets of divided Berlin as the manager (James Cagney) of Coca-Cola’s West Berlin office goes about the task of cracking the Iron Curtain with six-packs. (But he can’t seem to get the empties back.)
Everything is just wunderbar till the big boss in Atlanta (Howard St. John) sends his teen-aged daughter (Pamela Tiffin) to Europe in order to break up her romance with a rock ’n’ roll singer named Choo-Choo.
Pamela promptly ducks through the Brandenburg Gate, where she marries a curly-haired, card-carrying communist (Horst Buchholz) who dreams of taking her to Moscow.
"We’ll have breakfast, lunch and supper in bed!" vows Horst. The catch: They don’t own a table and chairs.
WORKING LIKE A COKE MACHINE gone mad, Cagney gets Buchholz arrested by the East German police (they break the boy’s spirit by subjecting him to repeated playing of "Polka Dot Bikini"), only to find that (1) Pamela is expecting a "bouncing baby Bolshevik" and (2) Mom and Dad are arriving in 24 hours.
So it’s off to the races again as the Banty Rooster gets Buchholz back from the commies and slips into high gear in order to make him a respectable son-in-law.
The gags fly thick and fast as Wilder steps on toes in every direction. Both the Americans and the Russians get their respective legs pulled, and even the Germans don’t escape. (Everytime Cagney enters his office the entire staff spans to attention.)
He also has a heel-clicking male secretary (Hans Lothar) who almost drives him mad. The heel-clicking becomes an out-of-sight gag when Cagney picks up the phone and is almost deafened by Lothar’s SS act of respect:
Cagney plays the whole thing at a full-blown bellow. He’s Mr. Energy personified, an exhausting sight to watch as he snaps his fingers and snaps out his words like a three-button bullwhip come to life.
He gets solid support from Buchholz, as the young commie who sometimes runs short of retorts ("The hell with Frank Sinatra!"), Arlene Francis, as his dryly witty wife, and Lilo Pulver as a sexy, dress-stretching secretary who simply beams over the "fringe benefits" Cagney provides with her job.
Also good: The poker-spined Lothar, Miss Tiffin, St. John and Red Buttons, who does a Cagney takeoff in his brief appearance as an MP Sergeant.
CAPSULE OPINION: Billy — wilder than ever. Well worth a second visit.