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Recently, while deciding what film to watch with my friends one evening, I suggested Some Like It Hot, which neither of my friends had seen before. When presented with the choice of either a black and white 1950s film, or a brightly coloured bells-and-whistles modern blockbuster, generally the vote goes to the latter. But I was relieved to find that by the end of the film both of my friends had been converted, and I had brought this comedy classic to a new audience.
Directed by Billy Wilder and released in 1959, the plot centres around two struggling musicians (played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who, after witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago, run away with a swing band to Florida in an attempt to avoid being killed themselves. There’s just one hitch – this is a girls’ band. With few other options, they transform from Joe and Jerry into Josephine and Daphne, rather butch bass and saxophone players. Things get even more complicated when Joe/Josephine falls for his colleague Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). Needless to say, japes ensue.
While this may sound like a traditional farce, the sheer talent of those involved and the pace of the smart dialogue lift this above most gender-swapping films. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, two legends of the silver screen, do some of their best work in this film so that you often forget you are watching two guys dressed as gals. Marilyn Monroe is at her most devastating as a singer who, by her own admission, is “not very bright”, but whose looks and personality more than make up for it.
Billy Wilder had been known for films such as the classic film noir Double Indemnity, and Sunset Boulevard, a tragic tale about an ageing actress trying to reclaim her past glory. Thus he is able to bring some of the seedier and more suspenseful elements into Some Like It Hot in scenes such as the massacre (an actual event) and others dealing with the Mafia. But the comedy is never far away, in Lemmon’s high-pitched delivery or in Curtis’ barely disguised Cary Grant impression.
If you haven’t seen this film, and think that you couldn’t possibly be entertained or amused by a film which is now fifty-one years old, then think again. During the American Film Institute’s ‘100 Years’ celebrations, they named Some Like It Hot as the funniest film of all time. Even if you take away the director, the performances and the absurd situation, it would still win for its closing line alone. Watch it and you’ll find out.
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