I suspect that One, Two, Three fizzles out frequently for younger audiences. So much of the humor is topical, referring to events that were current in 1961, or have a cultural frame of reference for adults of that era. While it is fascinating to see a film that takes place in a divided Berlin before the wall went up, gags about Nikita Kruschev probably require explanation for some. Jokes about Adlai Stevenson and Chet Huntley may seem obscure. Too many of the jokes concerning Pamela Tiffin's ditzy character of Scarlett refer to Gone with the Wind, although the jokes about Southern contempt for Yankees are still funny. Lilo Pulver, the tall, blonde, gum chewing secretary, remains sexy and funny, periodically recalling Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot, especially in a scene where Hanns Lothar has to wear her clothes for a temporary disguise.

The film is pretty much carried by James Cagney from beginning to end. There are a couple of jokes about Cagney's gangster persona, including a moment where he re-enacts his grapefruit scene from Public Enemy with Horst Bucholz standing in for Mae Clark. Cagney also has a line that is a variation of Edward G. Robinson's famed words from Little Caesar. By making a film with Cagney, Billy Wilder worked with the three top stars from Warner Brothers "gangster" films - Robinson in Double Indemnity and Humphrey Bogart in Sabrina. Even though the circumstances for working with these three actors were different, the three are known for their unique voices and speech patterns. There is a roundabout kind of logic with Wilder working with Cagney, Bogart and Robinson, the gangster persona is not to far removed from the artist who made a point of pushing boundries, especially with the United Artists films.

At this time, I should take my queue from Billy Wilder himself who was noted as saying: “If there's anything I hate more than being taken seriously, it's being taken too seriously."