Which 1961 Wilder comedy stars James Cagney as C.R. MacNamara?
Answer
One, Two, Three
The 1961 Wilder comedy starring James Cagney as C.R. MacNamara is One, Two, Three.
Cagney plays MacNamara, the Coca-Cola executive responsible for the company’s West Berlin operations. His carefully managed business life collapses when his boss’s daughter secretly marries a young communist from East Berlin, forcing MacNamara into a frantic attempt to solve the family and corporate crisis.
The film is set during the Cold War before the Berlin Wall was built, and its rapid-fire plot turns political tensions into farce. Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond based the screenplay on Ferenc Molnár’s 1929 one-act play Egy, kettő, három, while also drawing partly on the earlier film Ninotchka.
One, Two, Three was Cagney’s final film appearance for two decades. After its 1961 release, he did not return to the screen until Ragtime in 1981. The other listed titles are Wilder films from different periods, but none features MacNamara.