Classic Movie Review: 'Some Like it Hot'

If you told me that I could only save one legendary film director’s career and the rest were to be destroyed, I would probably choose to save Billy Wilder’s remarkable catalog. Don’t get me wrong, I would miss Alfred Hitchcock or Michael Curtiz or Ernst Lubitsch but Wilder’s catalog has movies I simply cannot live without. The Seven Year Itch, The Apartment, Ace in the Hole, and Some Like It Hot are movies I could not think of losing forever.

Wilder’s knack for snappy dialogue, vivid characters, and deeply committed performances from his actors is uncanny. Wilder draws things out of an actor even though they didn’t know that they had. Take Fred MacMurray transforming into a nasty character in Double Indemnity or William Holden’s lacerating performance in Sunset Boulevard. Those characters don’t come to life without the brilliance of Billy Wilder.

Some Like it Hot is now available via the Criterion Collection on Blu Ray for the first time and it is the ultimate must buy for movie fans. Some Like it Hot is one of the greatest comedies in history, a comedy of manners in the loosest sense, the film plays toward the absurd lengths we go to try and believe what we are seeing simply because we see it. The characters of Some Like it Hot want to believe that our heroes are really women and their suspension disbelief is at the center of the story.

Some Like It Hot stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as best pals Joe and Jerry. Joe and Jerry are Jazz musicians who play gigs all over Chicago. One night after a gig they see a mobster murdering multiple people and they flee as fast as they can with the killer’s on their trail. Desperate to escape with their lives, the guys resort to dressing as women and catching on with an all women’s jazz band on their way to Florida for a gig.

As Josephine and Daphne, Curtis and Lemmon don’t really pass for women but they pass close enough, and play their instruments well enough that the rest of the band doesn’t care enough to have disbelief. Both Joe and Jerry fall for Sugar (Marilyn Monroe). Though they can’t reveal themselves they do dance around the edges of being caught while flirting with the disarmingly sweet Sugar. Sugar, on the other hand, plans to meet a rich man in Florida and get married.

This leads to a scheme where Joe casts himself as a rich playboy named Shell Oil Junior, heir to the Shell Oil business. He intends on winning Sugar’s heart before he reveals his true self and the fact that her new female friends aren’t who they appear to be. Meanwhile, poor Jerry ends up running interference for Joe with an actual millionaire named Osgood Fielding III played by Joe E. Brown in a wonderful performance.

Eventually, the gangsters re-enter the plot and the main characters return to scrambling for cover but along the way, Some Like it Hot is a vibrant, lively, belly-laugh inspiring comedy. Not only is the movie a true classic, it is one of the wonderfully alive comedies of all time. The characters are incredible, the dialogue is witty and charming and the pace of the movie is relentlessly inventive, rarely slowing down but never going by too fast.

Wilder’s knack for indelible characters may be at its absolute peak in Some Like It Hot. Joe and Jerry are brilliantly cast with Curtis and Lemmon, actors of uncommonly generous talent for sharing the screen and elevating their fellow performers. If Marilyn Monroe had worked exclusively for Billy Wilder in her career, she would have eventually won an Academy Award. The Seven year Itch is arguably Monroe’s finest acting moment but Some Like It Hot is a very close second.

It’s amazing to think that the role of Sugar was initially written for Mitzy Gaynor until Marilyn made it clear that she wanted the role and her star-power dictated that she be cast. Tony Curtis also narrowly made the cut, the role of Joe was first offered to Frank Sinatra who bailed on the audition leading to Curtis getting, perhaps, the best role of his career. Sinatra in a dress probably wouldn’t have worked and certainly wouldn’t have been as believable as Curtis, with his smooth, feminine face and thin lips.

Some Like It Hot is arguably the greatest comedy of all time. It has everything from big laughs to genuine romance to a filmmaker in Wilder who brings a craftsmanship and just the right directorial flourish to the film. The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray is a must own with incredible features and a brilliant 4K restoration.