One, Two, Three is based on a one-act play by which Hungarian writer?

One, Two, Three is based on the one-act play by Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár.

Molnár’s 1929 play is titled Egy, kettő, három, meaning “One, Two, Three.” Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond adapted it into the 1961 film, relocating its rapid-fire social comedy to Cold War-era West Berlin. The screenplay also borrowed part of its plot from Ninotchka, the 1939 film that Wilder had co-written.

The movie stars James Cagney as Coca-Cola executive C. R. “Mac” MacNamara, who tries to manage a crisis after his boss’s daughter marries an idealistic young East German Communist. The plot’s frantic transformations and commercial satire echo Molnár’s stage-comedy roots while adding contemporary tensions about capitalism, communism and divided Berlin.

Molnár was born Ferenc Neumann in Budapest in 1878 and became one of Hungary’s best-known dramatists. His other internationally important works include Liliom, later adapted into the musical Carousel, and The Guardsman. The film’s source is sometimes confused with Wilder’s original screenplay, but its credited theatrical basis is Molnár’s one-act play.