A second 4K release for the Billy Wilder-I.A.L. Diamond classic?  Yes, but the advantage goes to the extras, which include unique input from the stars and especially the director. It’s a career best show for Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis give everything they’ve got to a pair of cross-dressing musicians, roles that could have been a career disaster under anyone else but Billy Wilder in his prime. One of the extras is a great Wilder/Dick Cavett interview. Another is an expert analysis of the film’s costumes, about which we naturally think, ‘how did Monroe’s sheer gowns ever get past the censors?’

Some Like It Hot 4K
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 950
1959 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date April 8, 2025 / available through Criterion / 49.95
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O’Brien, Joe E. Brown, Nehemiah Persoff, Joan Shawlee, Billy Gray, George E. Stone, Dave Barry, Mike Mazurki, Harry Wilson, Beverly Wills, Barbara Drew, Edward G. Robinson Jr., Laurie Mitchell, Joan Nicholas, Paul Frees, Grace Lee Whitney.
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Art Director: Ted Haworth
Film Editor: Arthur P. Schmidt
Original Music: Adolph Deutsch
Written by Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan
Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder

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.’

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.

The Criterion Collection’s 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray of Some Like It Hot is a 4K digital restoration. Seen on a large monitor, it all but erases the quality difference between home video and a big screening. Older films can often look better on disc than they did on screens way back when, if only because screening prints were several generations away from the the original negative. The crisp 4K images are vibrant and textured; in some scenes Marilyn almost looks 3-D.

In addition to an original mono track, the disc carries a 5.1 remix. The 4K disc is in Dolby Vision / HDR. The video extras are all on the second Blu-ray disc with its own feature encoding.

Criterion’s extras may be the impetus for a return to Wilder’s comedy on disc. Howard Suber’s vintgage audio commentary is a keepsake; he shows a real fondess for the show while covering it from multiple angles. It appears to be the only extra from that 1989 laserdisc.

From an old MGM/UA disc come some light featurettes, that nevertheless have Lemmon and Curtis on camera talking about the movie. One collects a quartet of actresses that played the film’s ‘Sweet Sues.’ They’re a lively bunch, but unfortunately were cued to talk mostly about Marilyn Monroe, not their experience on the set. From France comes a Jack Lemmon interview (1988) which gives the actor an opportunity to be ‘on’ and project his personality.

Truly charming is an 8-minute radio talk with Marilyn Monroe, nicely handled by Dave Garroway. Yep, she sounds pretty adorable.

From 2018 is a fascinating talk between costuming experts Deborah Nadoolman and Larry McQueen. The discussion of the drag costumes notes that Curtis and Lemmon are simply well-dressed, with no ‘funny’ touches. We also get the full rundown on Marilymn Monroe’s famously scandalous gowns. One is made from a sheer fabric no longer manufactured … because it is highly flammable.

Best of all is Dick Cavett’s extended interview with Billy Wilder. The director was promoting his unfortunate last movie Buddy Buddy — which may be the only American Wilder movie never released on home video. Cavett starts slow, asking where the name ‘Billy’ came from. Wilder’s responses go far beyond the one-liners we might expect, and it’s a thoroughly entertaining 45 minutes.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some Like It Hot
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary with Howard Suber, 1989
Program on Orry-Kelly’s costumes for the film, with costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis and costume historian Larry McQueen
Three behind-the-scenes documentaries
Appearances by director Billy Wilder on The Dick Cavett Show, 1982
Conversation between actor Tony Curtis and film critic Leonard Maltin, 2001
French television interview with actor Jack Lemmon, 1988
Radio interview from 1955 with actor Marilyn Monroe, 1955
Trailer
Illustrated fold-out with an essay by Sam Wasson.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: June 25, 2025
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