Some Like It Hot
by Billy Wilder
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: George Raft, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, Pat O'Brien, Tony CurtisDirector: Billy Wilder
Brand: MGM
Producer: Billy Wilder
Writer: Billy Wilder
Producer: Doane Harrison
Producer: I.A.L. Diamond
Writer: I.A.L. Diamond
Writer: Michael Logan
Writer: Robert Thoeren
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-22
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Some Like It Hot
Movie Review: The Wilder Touch Lights Up Cross-Dressing Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This is Billy Wilder's comic masterpiece. I have loved this movie ever since I saw it on TV as a child in the sixties. Starting with a clever script co-written with his longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, Wilder has concocted a fast-paced farce set in 1929 that encompasses Chicago speakeasies, geriatric Florida millionaires, men in drag and of course, Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators. This 1959 classic brings these disparate elements together into something quite serendipitous, peaking both as a whip-smart comedy with zingy one-liners and as a bracing look at mistaken identities, sexual and otherwise.
Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon portray Joe and Jerry, a couple of out-of-luck musicians on the lam from Spats Columbo, a kingpin gangster who stages the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which of course through a cruel twist of fate, the boys witness. They go undercover as Josephine and Daphne to join Sweet Sue's all-girl band for an engagement in a fancy Florida beach hotel. Chaos ensues from the minute they do the gender switch and get entangled with ukulele-strumming Sugar Kane (neé Kowalcyzk) on the train and later with a smitten aged tycoon named Osgood E. Fielding in Florida. Of course Spats and his thugs re-enter the picture, and then the chase starts anew. There are so many rib-tickling scenes that it's hard to choose the best, but for my money, top honors go to the out-of-control party in Daphne's upper berth on the train, Daphne's maraca-shaking enthusiasm in accepting Osgood's marriage proposal, and the cross-cutting between Daphne and Osgood's increasingly carnal tango and Joe's faked impotency as a sex-trap for Sugar aboard Osgood's yacht under the guise of Junior, the supposed scion of the Shell Oil fortune.
Curtis is a revelation as Joe/Josephine/Junior, showing real skill as a farceur and playing off his matinee-idol looks to great effect. I love how Wilder sets him up as the snarkier of the two as Joe but then as the more conservative one when he turns into Josephine. His Cary Grant imitation as Junior is also spot-on hilarious. Lemmon is at his comedic zenith as Jerry/Daphne in what has to be one of the funniest performances ever captured onscreen. Almost every line he utters puts me in a state of hysteria, and the joy is in how he plays Daphne intially with a giggly insecurity but then finds confidence and a cathartic release in being a woman. The interplay between Curtis and Lemmon is synchronized like a fine instrument, and what's more, neither thankfully goes the standard burlesque route as women.
Although she is top-billed due to her stature at the time, Marilyn Monroe really plays the subordinate role of Joe's love interest as Sugar, but she makes the most of a relatively decorative part. Looking yummy and exuding her unparalleled star charisma, she is sexy, funny (Wilder hands her some surprisingly sharp lines to deliver) and when she is getting the "fuzzy end of the lollipop" within the context of Sugar's implied alcoholism, Monroe is quite touching. When she is onscreen, you can't take your eyes off of her, her legend assured, especially looking zaftig in her shimmering gowns and seductively singing three numbers of the era in her inimitable, whispering fashion. Wide-mouthed Joe E. Brown steals all his scenes as Osgood, and George Raft brings his familiar tough-guy style to Spats, the type of role he has probably played more than a dozen times in his career. This is likely Wilder's best film if only for the fact that he assembled the perfect cast for a perfectly realized comedy based on the most contrived of concepts. A must-see with of course, the classic ending line, "Nobody's perfect!".
Summary of Some Like It Hot
When Chicago musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) accidentally witness a gangland shooting, they quickly board a southbound train to Florida, disguised as Josephine and Daphne, the twonewestand homeliestmembers of an all-girl jazz band. Their cover is perfect...until a lovelorn singer (Marilyn Monroe) falls for Josephine, an ancient playboy (Joe E. Brown) falls for Daphne, and a mob boss (George Raft) refuses to fall for their hoax! Nominated* for 6 Academy Awards(r), Some Like It Hot is the quintessential madcap farce and one of the greatest of all film comedies (The Motion Picture Guide). *1959: Director, Actor (Lemmon), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography (B&W), Art Direction (B&W), Costume Design (B&W, winner)Maybe "nobody's perfect," as one character in this masterpiece suggests. But some movies are perfect, and Some Like It Hot is one of them. In Chicago, during the Prohibition era, two skirt-chasing musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), inadvertently witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. In order to escape the wrath of gangland chief Spats Colombo (George Raft), the boys, in drag, join an all-woman band headed for Florida. They vie for the attention of the lead singer, Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a much-disappointed songbird who warbles "I'm Through with Love" but remains vulnerable to yet another unreliable saxophone player. (When Curtis courts her without his dress, he adopts the voice of Cary Grant--a spot-on impersonation.) The script by director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond is beautifully measured; everything works, like a flawless clock. Aspiring screenwriters would be well advised to throw away the how-to books and simply study this film. The bulk of the slapstick is handled by an unhinged Lemmon and the razor-sharp Joe E. Brown, who plays a horny retiree smitten by Jerry's feminine charms. For all the gags, the film is also wonderfully romantic, as Wilder indulges in just the right amounts of moonlight and the lilting melody of "Park Avenue Fantasy." Some Like It Hot is so delightfully fizzy, it's hard to believe the shooting of the film was a headache, with an unhappy Monroe on her worst behavior. The results, however, are sublime. --Robert Horton
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