Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot is a
1959 comedy film directed by
Billy Wilder. It stars
Marilyn Monroe,
Tony Curtis and
Jack Lemmon. The movie was adapted by Billy Wilder and
I.A.L. Diamond from the story by
Robert Thoeren and
Michael Logan. Logan had already written the story (but without the gangsters) for a
German movie,
Fanfaren der Liebe (directed by
Kurt Hoffmann,
1951), so that Wilder's film is seen by some as a
remake.
Some Like It Hot tells the story of two struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry (Curtis and Lemmon), who are on the run from a Chicago gang after witnessing the
St. Valentine's Day Massacre of
1929. The gangster in charge is Spats Columbo (
George Raft), who orders the execution of Jerry and Joe. They escape in the confusion and decide to leave town. But the only out-of-town job they can find is in an all-girl band, so they disguise themselves as women and call themselves Josephine and Daphne. They join the band and go to
Florida by train. Joe and Jerry fall for
ukulele player and band
vocalist "Sugar" Kane (Monroe), and fight for her affection while maintaining their disguises. In Florida, an aging millionaire, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) falls for Jerry in his "Daphne" guise, while Joe dresses up as a
Cary Grant-imitating millionaire owner of
Shell Oil to woo Sugar. The mob eventually finds Joe one Jerry again, when they arrive at the same hotel for a conference honoring "Friends of Italian Opera". After several humorous chases (and witnessing yet another mob rubout), Jerry, Joe, Sugar and Osgood escape to the millionaire's yacht.
*On the set, Wilder grew exasperated by Monroe's inability to remember her lines. He had several of them written in inconspicuous spots on the set, so she could read them. In particular, it is possible to see Monroe's eyes move back and forth during the scene where she talks to Curtis' character on the phone in her hotel room - she was reading from a chalkboard held behind the camera.
*Monroe was pregnant during the film's production and had a miscarriage the day after its first audience preview. Her pregnancy is most notable in the famous yacht scene.
*Jack Lemmon considered a scene from this film to be the best of his screen career. Tony Curtis enters the hotel room to find Lemmon lying on a bed clothed in an evening dress, singing and shaking a pair of maracas. Lemmon announces he's engaged to Joe E. Brown. After blithely answering a string of objections -
What will you do on your honeymoon? morphs into a comparison of the
French Riviera and
Niagara Falls - Lemmon admits that he plans to annul the marriage and collect alimony as
hush money.
*Wilder paid tribute to three great gangster movies of the
1930s with subtle gags in the movie's script. The crimelord "Little Bonaparte" stems from
Little Caesar, while Spats Columbo threatens to smash a grapefruit in the face of one of his henchmen (
James Cagney's famous scene from
The Public Enemy). He then grabs a coin from the air as it is being flipped by another gangster, a cliche that originated with
Howard Hawks' Scarface.
*The film was originally planned to be filmed in full color, but after several screen tests it had to be changed to black and white. The reason for this was a very obvious 'green tint' around the heavy make-up of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon when in role as Josephine and Daphne.
*Scenes were filmed at the
Hotel del Coronado in
Coronado, California.
*The film's title comes from a line in the
nursery rhyme "
Pease Porridge Hot."
*The film's original title was
Not Tonight, Josephine.
In
1972, a musical play based on the movie, entitled
Sugar, opened on Broadway, starring
Elaine Joyce,
Robert Morse,
Tony Roberts and
Cyril Ritchard, with book by
Peter Stone, lyrics by
Bob Merrill, and music by
Jule Styne. In
2002, Tony Curtis performed in a stage production of the film, portraying the character originally played by Joe E. Brown.
The film won an
Academy Award for
Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (
Orry-Kelly) and was nominated for
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Lemmon),
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White,
Best Cinematography, Black-and-White,
Best Director and
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
It won the
Golden Globe for Best Comedy. Marilyn Monroe won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy, and Jack Lemmon for Best Actor in Musical or Comedy.
The movie has been acclaimed worldwide as one of the greatest movie comedies ever made. It ranked #1 on the
American Film Institute's list of the
greatest comedies as well as #14 on their list of the
100 best American films). The film has also been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States
Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry. In
2000, readers of
Total Film magazine voted it the 8th greatest comedy film of all time (see
Total Film Magazine's List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time).
|
"I'm a MAN!" - "Nobody's perfect." |
Jerry (as Daphne): Now you've done it!
Joe (as Josephine): Done what?
Jerry (as Daphne): You tore off one of my chests!
Sugar: "Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold!"
Joe: "The ship is in ship-shape shape!"
Sugar: "It's the story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop."
Sweet Sue: "Didn't you girls go to a conservatory?"
Jerry (as Daphne): "Yes, for a whole year."
Sweet Sue: "I thought you said it was three years."
Joe: "We got time off...for good behaviour."
Jerry (as Daphne): "You don't understand, Osgood! Aaah... I'm a man!"
Osgood: "Well, nobody's perfect."
*
Cross-dressing in film and television*
Plot summary for Fanfaren der Liebe*
Roger Ebert's review of Some Like It Hot [
1]
