Wilder also pitched the concept for “The Apartment” to Paramount around this time, but it was not greenlit until 1960. The comedic premise was explicit for its era — corporate cog played by Wilder’s longtime collaborator Jack Lemmon works his way up the ladder by loaning his apartment out to his adulterous superiors for their extramarital exploits. The plan leaves him stranded in the streets and alienated by his neighbors most nights, but the promotions he gets in return feel worth it until it backfires in a big way.

The director started producing his own films in 1951. This allowed him more creative control within the restrictive studio system at Paramount. By the time he made “The Apartment” in 1960, he had figured out how to avoid letting the film be manipulated by the studio. Wilder learned this lesson with “Ace in the Hole,” he explained to French critic Michael Clement (via FilMagicians). “I ultimately achieved cutting rights from the studio, which is about the best that you can hope for.”

Since “The Apartment” alludes to sexual activity and adultery, it flirted with a violation of the strict morality code that dominated Hollywood at the time — the Hays code. The Hays code wasn’t officially abolished until 1968, but films like “The Apartment” chipped away at it in the early ’60s. The code suppressed any allusion to sexual activity whatsoever, even dictating that married onscreen couples sleep in separate twin beds. “The Apartment” was one of the most explicit films to be made under the code, chalked full of direct and morally ambiguous references to extramarital affairs.

Without Wilder pushing the envelope, Hollywood’s antiquated systems may have never evolved. “The Apartment” and “Sunset Boulevard” paved the way for New Hollywood movies like “The Graduate,” bending the rules until they were broken.