One, Two, Three

Wilder's hilarious re-werking of Ninotchka, set in a divided Berlin rather than a romantic Paris, shows how a frenzied Coca-Cola executive (James Cagney at his most magnetic) sets about converting a scruffy communist (Horst Buchholz) into a smart capitalist. The fact that the Berlin Wall was being constructed at the time possibly gives its attack on Western and Eastern ideological rigidities an extra bite·; certainly, it is one of Wilder's broadest and fastest satires, if not the most subtle. (National Film Theatre, London)