The film's director Billy Wilder was born in a small town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that now belongs to Poland. He studied in Vienna before living for many years in Berlin, where he became a screenwriter. In 1934, he moved to the United States, where he went on to win six Oscars. Yet it seems he remained a 'Berliner', given that this 1961 film is set in the city. The screenplay was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's one-act play of the same name. And to add further excitement to this apparently innocent American comedy: the Berlin Wall was pulled down during filming and they had to finish the shoot in the studio.
But let's not forget that One, Two, Three remains an American comedy. Which is why Billy Wilder made some changes to Ferenc Molnár's one-act play. Here, the all powerful bank director is a Coca-Cola Company director (James Cagney) in West Berlin, while the taxi driver becomes a good, faithful Communist boy (Horst Buchholz) from the eastern side of the city. A political comedy? And then some! While preserving the infinitely witty concept of Molnár's play, the film's dialogue is full of refe...rences, irony and self-deprecation, because Billy Wilder is able to both see and present Berlin as an American, and the Americans - both the Yankees and southerners - through European eyes. We also learn that sometimes the cultural bridges of Europe take a tortuous route, and can extend to more than one continent. Pretty enthralling. In his long, action-packed life, Billy Wilder wrote 84 screenplays and directed 27 films. His dialogues are utterly brilliant. Almost every one of his jokes has a double meaning, a spicy twist. They have also aged extremely well. Just to jog your memory: Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, Irma la Douce, The Apartment, The Fortune Cookie... We could go on.
In English, with Hungarian subtitles.
The discussions before and after the screening will be conducted in Hungarian.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.
Accept all