Some Like it Hot (1959) Billy Wilder

 

        This is the 50^th Anniversary of “Some Like it Hot’s” release and in commemoration , the Film Forum is showing a new print of the film from Oct 2^nd to Oct 8^th. Additionally, two new books are being released. “The Making of Some Like it Hot” by Tony Curtis and Mark Vieria and “Some Like Hot: The Official 50^th Anniversary Companion”  by Laurence Maulon. 

     Do you remember the first film you ever recorded? I do, it was Billy Wilder’s “Some Like it Hot” way back sometime in the 1960’s. “Wait a minute!” You say, “How can you have recorded it back in the 1960’s when VCR’s did not come out until the late 1970’s?”  Well, it was simple, on a reel-to-reel tape recorder.  I loved this film so much I recorded the entire soundtrack. I use to lay down with headphones on, and listen to the entire movie, visualizing all the scenes.

      Crazy, weird?  Well my parents certainly thought so.

      Needless to say, “Some Like it Hot” is one of my favorite movies, it has stood the test of time. Because of this film, I became a lifelong admirer of both director Wilder and Jack Lemmon. It is a film I never get tired of watching.

     Before and since its release in 1959, there have been many films (“I Was A Male War Bride”, “Tootsie”, “La Cage aux Folles”) and TV shows like (“Bosom Buddies”) that have used men in drag as plot device but none have come close or surpassed “Some Like it Hot” it in its farcical  humor.  The well-known plot is simple, two Chicago musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), in the 1920’s witness The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre after which they decide it might be best for their health if they leave town. The only jobs available are as musicians in an all girl band heading for Florida. It is at the train station they meet Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk (Monroe) a ukulele player and singer with the band. 

    The film begins with an old fashion 1930’s Warner Brothers style shootout. The police are hot in pursuit of a Hearst packed with members of Spats Columbo’s gang. Firepower is exploding from both sides with no concern for innocent passersby. The battle rages until the police car skids and smashes into a poll.  Losing the cops, the hoodlums in the back of the Hearst open up the damaged coffin to find the bullet ridden remains of hundreds of bottles of bootleg booze.

     Inside a speakeasy we meet Joe and Jerry, two musicians whose lives are about to change drastically. Within moments, they will be out of work after a raid by the police. Evading the police during the raid, the now out of work boys  make the rounds of various music agencies only to find out the only jobs for a sax player and bass player are in an All Girls Band or a $6 a piece gig some one hundred miles away. They opt for the long snowy drive borrowing Nellie Wymers car which is parked in a garage where they innocently witness the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Suddenly, the job dressed as women in an All Girls Band, more than a thousand miles away in Florida, does not seem so bad.       

    As they join the band on the train, Joe and Jerry transform into Josephine and Geraldine, who is soon to become Daphne. The “girls” meet the rest of the band on the train including Sugar “Kane” the beautiful singer/ukulele player.

      Once in Florida, Joe in a second disguise as Junior the wealthy son of a millionaire (Shell Oil) attempts to seduce Sugar. Meanwhile Jerry, I mean Daphne is pursued by octogenarian Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) who wants to marry her. Before long the Chicago gangsters show up for a “convention” of the Friends of Italian Opera and well all hell breaks loose leading to the now classic closing line by Osgood after proposing marriage to Daphne who reveals she’s a he.

    “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

    At the time of its release, the Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a condemned rating (in Kansas, they actually banned the film); subsequently “Some Like it Hot” joined a flock of notable films ruled objectionable to viewing by all Catholics.  This included films like “The Outlaw”, “Black Narcissus”, Fritz Lang’s “M”, “And God Created Woman” and “Baby Doll.”  The big “C” rating usually meant the large Catholic population would stay away from these films and boycott them into oblivion. However, by 1959, the Legion, along with the Motion Picture Production Code was beginning to lose their grip. Audiences, both Catholic and non-Catholic went to see “Some Like it Hot” making it into one of the biggest hits of the year.  So why was “Some Like it Hot” condemned? One three-letter word…sex!

      Billy Wilder and co-screenwriter I.A.L Diamond wrote a script that is not only funny but also loaded with sexual innuendo. The now classic railroad berth scene where Jerry/Daphne plans on a unexpected private slumber party with just him and Sugar turns into an accidental wild party with just about every female band member climbing into the berth ready to party including one flaunting a large salami. The scene progresses into a sea of pajama clad female bodies climbing all over each other, reminiscent of the stateroom scene in The Marx Brothers “A Night at the Opera”, with plenty of booze spilling, inappropriate hand movement and by the end of the scene a frustrated Jerry/Daphne in the middle of a male fantasy gone haywire.  Later on, Joe’s seduction of Sugar aboard Osgood’s yacht where he pretends to be an impotent millionaire speaking with an obvious phony Cary Grant accent. Sugar’s attempts to “revive” the millionaire’s sleeping libido steams up not only his glasses but also the entire movie screen. Meanwhile on shore, Jerry/Daphne and lecherous millionaire Osgood are steaming up the floor with a hot tango.

     So where are we here? We have Joe posing as woman (Josephine) who is  impersonating a guy (Junior) all in an attempt to get Sugar into bed. Jerry is Daphne pursued by a millionaire dirty old mama’s boy and finally there is Sugar who somehow manages to wear a dress that defies gravity and must have been glued to her body.  Anyone familar with Wilder’s work is aware that impersonation is a common theme in his films. In his very first directorial effort, “The Major and the Minor” he had Ginger Rogers posing as a 12-year-old girl. In “Irma La Douce”, Jack Lemmon is a French police officer who poses as an English Lord; Kim Novak was Polly the Pistol, a hooker who becomes a housewife in “Kiss Me Stupid.”

       Acting kudos belong to all three leads. Monroe, rarely given the credit for being a great comedic actress offers a combination of strong womanly sexuality, yet maintains a childlike innocence that manages to make the most explicit double entrendres sound well, innocent.  Sex with Marilyn is exciting but never threatening.

    Jack Lemmon became a major star with this film and found a career partner in Billy Wilder whom he would go on to make six more films. Curtis as Joe was generally overshadowed by Lemmon’s performance, and Monroe’s, yet Curtis is an accomplished comedic actor who has been overlooked throughout his career, not just in comedy but in dramatic parts too. His Cary Grant imitation came about when Wilder asked him if there is anyone, he could imitate. When Curtis said Cary Grant, Wilder was ecstatic; he always wanted to make a film with the suave Grant. This would be as close as he would ever come. Curtis also suffered because of Marilyn’s bad work habits. Her performance would improve after many takes, while Tony was generally at his best in the early takes. Wilder usually went with Marilyn’s best sacrificing Tony’s performance. After all, most eyes were going to be on Monroe.

    Wilder and Diamond’s dialogue just rolls off the tongues of his cast like an expensive bottle of wine. When Joe/Josephine and Jerry/Daphne first spot Sugar walking along the train platform,   Jerry tells Joe, “It’s just like Jell-O on springs! Some sort of built in motor. I tell ya’ it’s a whole different sex.”  The movie is filled with just about one classic scene after another. When Jerry announces to Joe that he is engaged.

Joe asks, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

 “I am” Jerry replies. “Osgood proposed to me. We’re planning a June Wedding.”

“You can’t marry Osgood!” Joe tells him.

“Why? Do you think he’s too old for me?”

Joe tells Jerry he had better lie down.

Jerry replies, “Will you stop treating me like a child. I know there’s a problem.”

“I’ll say there is” Joe said

“His mother, we need her approval. But I’m not worried, because I don’t smoke.”

“Jerry there is another problem. Like what are you going to do on your honeymoon?”

“We’ve been discussing that,” Jerry says, “He wants to go to the Riviera and I kinda lean toward Niagara Falls.”

    Who else but Wilder, and he knew Marilyn’s childlike delivery could get away with it, would write a line like “That’s the story of my life; I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.”

    Wilder once swore he would never work with Monroe again. After making “The Seven Year Itch”, Wilder swore up and down he would not make another film with her, claiming life is too short. Yet, here he was with MM again because well, no one was like Marilyn.  She was oblivious to others, not necessarily uncaring just oblivious. Lemmon and Curtis would spend hours getting ready in makeup for the roles and then would still have to wait until Marilyn came out of her trailer. Still when you saw her on the screen, it was magical. Wilder compared her screen presence to Garbo. Speaking of Monroe, there is the scene where she sings “I Wanna Be Love By Love” while wearing what amounts to a see-through gown, so carefully lit that Wilder managed to get it passed the vigilant eyes of the censors.     

    Tony Curtis was pretty much signed up for the film from the start. Wilder originally planned on Frank Sinatra as Joe and Mitzi Gaynor as Sugar. Curtis was originally scheduled to play Jerry. Then Monroe signed on.  Along the way, Sinatra was out and the young and upcoming Jack Lemmon signed on for the role of Jerry. Curtis switched over to the role of Joe. The film was originally to be shot in color, however, after some screen test of the boys dressed as girls were completed, it was decided they would be more believable in black and white. In truth, neither Lemmon nor Curtis was very convincing as women, unlike Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie.” Watching the film recently, I keep getting the feeling that Lemmon looked at times like a deranged combination of Jessica Fletcher and Heath Ledger’s The Joker. They get away with it mainly because “Some Like it Hot” is a farce as opposed to more serious straight comedic film with a message, like “Tootsie.”

    The movie is not just Monroe, Lemmon and Curtis; Wilder pays loving tribute to the Warner Brothers gangster film with George Raft playing Spats Colombo and Pat O’Brien as Police Detective Mulligan. Wilder also used “Little Caesar” alumni George E. Stone in the role of “Toothpick” Charlie. There is a wonderful scene with Raft as Spats and a young thug flipping a coin in the air, Raft’s trademark move from “Scarface.” He tells the thug, “Where did you get that cheap trick?” The thug is played by Edward G. Robinson Jr.  Robinson Sr. was originally supposed to play Little Bonaparte, a role ultimately played by Nehemiah Peroff.  Then there is Joe E. Brown whose pronunciation of Wilder and Diamonds dialogue is well, zowie thanks to a very large mouth. Also on board are Wilder favorite Joan Shawlee as Sweet Sue. Character actor Mike Mazurski (“Ain’t I had the pleasure of meeting you two broads before?”) is one of the not so brightly lit hoods.

    The Florida scenes were actually filmed in San Diego at the famed Coronado Hotel. And I would be remiss if I did not mention Charles Lang’s beautuful black and white photography.

      Not all critics at the time were bowled over by “Some Like it Hot.”  Some were shocked by the risqué humor, still the film was a monumental hit. Today, it is considered arguably one of the funniest films ever put on celluloid. The American Film Institute named it the funniest film ever made, for what that is worth. Is it Wilder’s best film? Many would argue, and with a filmography consisting of such works like “The Apartment”, “Double Indemnity”, “Sunset Blvd”, “Ace in the Hole” and others it is tough to make a definitive choice. For me, as I stated in the beginning, it was the first film I ever recorded and one of my all-time favorites, I consider it up there with “Duck Soup” and “The Producers as one of the greatest comedies ever made  and a sentimental favorite to say the least.