This Artist of the Month selection is sponsored by Tony Farnborough, loyal Widescreen Warrior and Super-fan. Interested in sponsoring an Artist of the Month yourself? Email us (rafe (at) widescreenwarrior.com) for more information!

We encountered a lot of Billy Wilder’s work about a year ago, when Walter Matthau was our Artist of the Month. As we made our way through Matthau’s body of work, it became clear to me that Wilder needed to be a selection in the future. Both as a writer and director, his contribution to film is beyond measure. He’s a comedic genius on par with Neil Simon, but also knows how to build suspense with the skill of Alfred Hitchcock.

Wilder’s fingerprints on the history of Hollywood run from the Golden Age to the Modern Age. Often using actors like Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray and Marilyn Monroe, Wilder was slated to work with famous comedians in his early days like the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. In his later years, he collaborated with Spielberg on Schindler’s List, what many consider to be Spielberg’s greatest films (and one of the great Important films of all time). Those collaborations show just how diverse Wilder’s approach to filmmaking was.

Throughout the month of April we’ll be looking at a variety of Wilder’s movies, taking a chronological approach to the filmmaker’s work, starting with his Oscar-nominated thriller Double Indemnity and concluding with his Oscar-winning comedy The Apartment. As always, we’ll talk about each week’s movies on The Weekly Blend Audio Show and, I suspect, discussing Wilder’s career on our forums. Feel free to watch along with us and join in on the conversation.

Widescreen Warrior Presents: Billy Wilder – Sponsored by Tony Farnborough

April 10th

• Double Indemnity (1944)
• The Lost Weekend (1945)

April 17th

• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• Stalag 17 (1953)
• Extra credit: Ace In The Hole (1951)

April 24th

• The Seven Year Itch (1955)
• Witness For The Prosecution (1957)

May 1st

• Some Like It Hot (1959)
• The Apartment (1960)