105) Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Director: Billy Wilder

Starring: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Joe E. Brown

Thursday evening we had a night off. Kate decided she was in the mood for either a movie or trivial pursuit, but after some thought decided that her mind was not up to more thinking, so a movie it was. Kate's been working her way through Hitchcock's films, and loving it, but there were none left on the shelf that both of us hadn't seen. She wanted something old, and despite having never seen it I was willing to take a punt that Some Like It Hot was not going to be too intellectually taxing.

When struggling musicians Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre they find themselves on the run from the mob, needing to get out of Chicago to hide. There just so happens to be a band which is heading to Miami and is in need of a bass player and a saxophonist. Perfect. The only problem is that it is an all girl band. Joe and Jerry decide to go undercover as Josephine and Daphne, travel with the band to Miami and then split. However after meeting the voluptuous Sugar Kane (Monroe) Joe decides perhaps it may be worth hanging around with the band for just a bit longer.

Some Like It Hot is classic Hollywood screwball comedy. For what sounds like a pretty bawdy premise, the film is actually very witty and clever. It is very well written. Once it gets rolling the film moves along at quite a pace and the jokes just keep coming and continue right through to the very last line of the film. There is obviously a fair suspension of belief required to accept that no one knows that Daphne and Josephine aren't women, but the fact that they stand out so much only adds to the fun. Early in the piece you may find yourself thinking this is all a bit ridiculous, but then you can't help but go along for the ride and while at the end of the film you won't think it any less ridiculous, you'll absolutely love it for it.

Born in Austria, Billy Wilder started his career as a screenwriter in Germany. When Hitler came to power, Wilder, who was Jewish, made the move across to America. There he proved himself to be an incredibly versatile director. In the 1940s and early 1950s he directed two of the absolute classics of American film noir cinema, Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd. He would then go on to write and direct some of America's best loved comedies and romances including Sabrina, The Apartment, Irma la Douce, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. While it pre-dates the globalisation of the cinema and is thus thought of as a very American era, the influence of foreign born directors on the golden era of Hollywood was enormous. For every John Ford, Howard Hawkes, Frank Capra and Preston Sturges churning out classics for the major studios there was an Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder.

This film was made in 1959, well into the era of colour but Wilder chose to film in black and white for two reasons. Firstly he thought it added to the authenticity of era the film was set in. All the films set in the 1920s had been made in black and white, so filming it in colour would have given the film a modern look. Sticking to black and white helped maintain the illusion of the 1920s. Secondly, filming in black and white helped to disguise the incredible amount of makeup on the faces of Curtis and Lemmon, which would have just looked like face paint in colour.

I had never seen anything with Marilyn Monroe in it before. The first thing that struck me though, was how big she looked. Being the kind of film that it was, there were a lot of shots which involved her walking away from camera while other characters and us looked at her bottom. The first time it happened, her bottom looked so big I almost thought there was an issue with the aspect ratio. Now before I get yelled at for being a pig I want to make it known that I do not for a second intend to suggest she is fat or overweight or anything, I've seen plenty of pictures of her and know that she is just a normal sized woman. But seeing her as such was quite a shock, because it really hammered home how petite and not real the Hollywood actress of today is. Even the ones who have the tag 'curvy', like Scarlett Johanssen, still appear much more toned than Marilyn did. Also, for a film made under the strict censorship conditions of the Production Code I was amazed at how sexual it was. Yes, Billy Wilder is a very witty man so managed to get a lot through with suggestive dialogue and images, but that doesn't cover up the fact that in a number of scenes Marilyn is absolutely falling out of her dress.

In terms of the hierarchy of American cross-dressing based comedies, I think it sits:

1. Some Like It Hot
2. Tootsie
3. Mrs. Doubtfire

I don't think it's worth continuing beyond that as I'm pretty sure the gap between Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire is significantly smaller than the gap between Mrs. Doubtfire and whatever comes next out of Big Momma's House, White Chicks and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.

Some Like It Hot consistently shows up on lists of all time classics and the American Film Institute actually judged it the greatest comedy of all time, so I admit that because of that I was a bit cautious in approaching it. Old comedies don't tend to hold up as well as dramas. Comic styles change over time and a lot of old stuff can be left behind, but I've got to say that Some Like It Hot holds up really well. I absolutely loved it and thinks it deserves all the plaudits that it gets. Greatest comedy of all time? That's not possible to say as comic taste is so subjective but I can see why it is always in the equation.