Some Like It Hot

A nice ‘editing career’ memory: late one evening long ago at a post-production house, assembling a video promo for Tri-Star’s The Bear, I saw some work being done on some rare film footage … color home movies of the cast of  Some Like It Hot. I spoke with the Criterion producer, who was prepping the it for use on a laserdisc release. At the time Criterion was known for pioneering video letterboxing (in old NTSC non-resolution) and introducing the audio commentary. The spokesperson for Some Like It Hot was to be none other than Howard Suber, a well-remembered critical studies professor at the UCLA film school.

We’ve been re-viewing Billy Wilder movies lately, and occasionally reading opinions that Wilder’s movies are overrated. I have to say that that for us, almost all of them hold up extremely well. Now more than ever we appreciate Wilder’s superior writing and fine wit. This show already exists in a good 4K encoding, and it seems to be playing every other day on Turner Classic Movies. But it’s back now from Criterion, with a great set of extras.

Only Billy Wilder could have made a gangster spoof about cross-dressing musicians. It’s Wilder’s sexiest comedy, thanks to Marilyn Monroe’s turn as the addle-brained Sugar Kane Kowalczyk. Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s affectionate screenplay allows Marilyn to transcend the dumb blonde stereotype by leaps and bounds. The film’s career-defining star performances even extend to the guest stars Pat O’Brien and Joe E. Brown, who get big laughs. Wilder and Diamond did’t worry about being out of date. Most teenagers in 1959 probably didn’t know who O’Brien and Brown were.

Some Like It Hot is an adaptation — a complete reorganization — of a Weimar-era German comedy with an even more explicit cross-dressing theme. The setting is shifted to St. Valentine’s Day in 1929 Chicago. Musicians Jerry and Joe (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) have the bad luck to witness a gangland rub-out ordered by mobster Spats Colombo (George Raft). The only way to get out of town alive is to dress as women and join an all-girl band heading to Florida. What at first seems impossible becomes all too easy. Jerry’s disguise seems to transform him into a girl in more than just appearance. When womanizer Joe lives so close to his chosen prey — hot dish lead singer Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) — he experiences romance from the other side of the sex divide.

Female impersonation was always a staple of broad burlesque comedy. Some Like It Hot is perhaps the first cross-dressing film in English to directly address gender politics. And there’s more than a bit of subversion in the film’s subtext: much of the humor observes that the gap between the sexes may not be as wide as we thought. Wilder and Diamond play with this notion while mining every situation for provocative hilarity.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are almost disturbingly credible when dressed as women. Jack purposely makes ‘Daphne’ look a little ridiculous when running, and even just walking. But the fine-featured Curtis was always a bit too beautiful, as was pointed out in the previous year’s  Sweet Smell of Success: “He’s the boy with the ice cream face.”  As ‘Josephine,’ Curtis carries himself exactly like a late-20’s flapper. One of the fashion show models in  Singin’ in the Rain wears an almost identical outfit, and could have been the template for the Curtis/Josephine ‘look.’

“I’m a girl  I’m a girl  I wish I were dead.” 

Wilder & Diamond’s jokes dig deep into the cross-gender illusion. Jerry/Daphne almost immediately discovers the female side of his personality: he develops opinions about clothing and a preference for the name Daphne over Geraldine. His responses to the cartoonish overtures of Joe E. Brown’s Osgood Fielding III are some kind of weird female fantasy. As a male Jerry considered himself a loser in love — is that why he enjoys being pursued while masquerading as a woman?  Jack Lemmon is uproariously funny, but the comedy carries a giddy tension. How will Jerry/Daphne’s identity crisis be resolved?

Curtis’s Joe, a confirmed ruthless cad, finds himself on the wrong end of the sexual double standard. Every creep and bellboy feels entitled to make crude passes at him/her. When in drag as Josephine he hears how women talk when a loverboy like himself is not around. He learns that Sugar Kane is vulnerable to the attentions of a certain kind of predatory male. Joe/Josephine at first eagerly exploits this inside knowledge. He becomes a male masquerading as a female masquerading as a male, in this case, a fake millionaire with a Cary Grant accent. A major attitude shift occurs: Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond allow Joe to become human enough to truly fall in love. For a movie made by a supposedly cynical director, Some Like It Hot is a sentimental career highlight.

Marilyn Monroe was the star sex attraction of her era, and the focus of many well-publicized production headaches. Wilder had to carefully pry Marilyn away from the coddling of her personal acting coaches. He noted that she often wouldn’t come out of her trailer, and when she did make it to the set she was incapable of remembering her lines. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon had to be spot-on with every line reading in every take, as nobody knew when the dialogue-flubbing Monroe might deliver a usable performance. Wilder admitted that her incandescence was unique, however. He had directed her  once before, and accepted that this show wouldn’t come in on schedule.

The finished movie shows none of this chaos. Monroe exudes more sex appeal than in any of her other features. The role allows her to be both a Lorelei Lee gold digger and a profoundly sweet innocent. How Wilder got a couple of her gowns past the Production Code censors is a Hollywood miracle. One dress inspired many a childhood fantasy. It looks literally spray-painted on and is lit by cameraman Charles Lang to enhance every curve. To quote Osgood Fielding: “Zowie!”

Gangland violence anchors the comedy, and Wilder’s machine guns are as frightening as in any straight underworld tale. The massacre scene is fairly explicit, yet the ugly-mug goons Mike Mazurki and Harry Wilson also evoke nervous laughter. The ‘affectionate’ gangland casting extends to the presence of Nehemiah Persoff as a Capone-style kingpin. George Raft’s gang boss role is more substantial than some of his classic starring roles; his flat delivery contrasts well with the extreme personalities around him. Gangland veteran George E. Stone  (Little Caesar) gets a nice late career showcase, too.

The girls in the band are a jolly pack of jokers. We should think they would immediately peg Daphne as a man, even if they are ‘virtuosos.’ Grace Lee Whitney is in there somewhere unbilled, along with sci-fi regular Laurie Mitchell (the Queen of Outer Space). Elsewhere the Wilder-Diamond brand of vulgar humor runs happily amuck, especially through the suspicious bandleader Sweet Sue — comedienne Joan Shawlee at her brassy best.

In the extras Tony Curtis mentions that ‘some’ of his voice as Josephine was added by another actor whose name he cannot remember. But in 1999 correspondent Bob Gutowski alerted us that Tony Curtis’s Josephine was fully dubbed by vocal specialist Paul Frees. It’s a pretty amazing job: as soon as we’re tipped off we recognize Frees’ chameleon voice. It’s covered in an early DVD Savant article.

By 1959, the biggest Hollywood comedies tended to be in bright color, as with Doris Day’s  Pillow Talk. Billy Wilder considered filming Some Like It Hot in color, and made color tests to see if the ‘boys’ might look too grotesque in drag.  →  Wilder was probably correct to stick with monochrome. He seemed to prefer B&W anyway. He chose B&W Panavision as the format for some of his ‘adult fairy tales,’ starting with his next picture,  The Apartment.

Practically every scene and dialogue exchange in the show is a classic, making further descriptions unnecessary. There will always be a new crop of viewers to be entertained by Wilder & Diamond’s sexy laugh machine — Jack Lemmon’s syncopated maracas, the famous, beyond-perfect finale. The trick to enjoying Some Like It Hot is to find someone who has never seen it and treat them to a screening. The picture is so uplifting, it could be advertised as good for one’s general health.