#you helping me find out about the bfi film academy??? but now she wants to push me to do it.... telling me about it like I've never

[robotpussy]

when you express your feelings to one of your parents and they take it as a personal attack..................

[introvertguide]

Some Like It Hot (1959); AFI #22

The current movie under review is the romantic comedy that is occasionally interrupted by a violent gangster film, Some Like It Hot (1959). Directed by Billy Wilder, this films stars Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Marylin Monroe. The movie was nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Actor, but ended up with only one trophy for Costume Design. It faired much better at the Golden Globes where it took home wins for Best Actor for Jack Lemmon, Best Actress for Marylin Monroe, and Best Picture - Musical or Comedy. This film is an interesting one as far as plot and tone since it incorporates a Chicago mafia massacre with men cross dressing. It points out how women have to deal with constant excepted sexism followed by a cross dressing Jack Lemmon forgetting to allow his sugar daddy to lead when they salsa. I really enjoy Billy Wilder films, especially with a great cast, because he takes scenes that should not go together and weaves them around a plot and it generally comes out amazing. Lets me do the plot summary and you will see what I mean:

SPOILER ALERT!!! NOT AS BAD AS NORMAL BUT THIS STILL GIVES A LOT AWAY SO CHECK OUT THE MOVIE FIRST!

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The movie starts in Prohibition Era Chicago, specifically in February 1929. Some members of the mafia have a secret speaking easy that is fronted by a funeral parlor. Somebody rats them out to the police and the place gets raided. During the raid, we are introduced to Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) who play in the band. They see the police coming and run away which means they don’t get paid and need to find another gig. 

Joe tricks a secretary that is sweet on him into using her car and they have to go to a garage to pick up. Wrong place and wrong time. They walk in on the mobsters killing the guy that ratted them out and are witnesses. They need to get out of Chicago and hide or they will be assassinated. The killing is based on the Valentine’s Day Massacre and it is in all the papers. Joe and Jerry take a job with an all women’s band since the group is going on the train to perform in Florida. This means that they will have to dress as women to blend in.

Once on board the train, Joe and Jerry (now going by Josephine and Daphne) mingle with all the pretty girls and both take a liking to a particular ukulele player named Sugar Kane (Marylin Monroe). It turns out that she drinks and has issues with her family as well as having problems with men always using her for her body. The guys need to stay in character and not get fired so they behave until they get to their hotel in Miami.

Once there, Joe and Jerry try to make moves on Sugar, however, Joe is the winner when he shows up at the beach dressed like a millionaire and claims he is the heir to Shell Oil. Jerry, on the hand, runs into an actual millionaire named Osgood Fielding III who has a yacht called the New Caledonia. Jerry keeps the millionaire busy dancing all night while Joe takes Sugar over to the empty yacht and sleeps with her.

The next day, it turns out that the mobsters that are looking for Joe and Jerry are at the hotel for a “Friends of Italian Opera” convention. It turns out to be a meeting place for a national crime syndicate and the protagonists need to flee. The bigger syndicate murder the mobsters that want to kill Joe and Jerry...but once again the two witness the assassination and are desperate to escape. Jerry calls his millionaire “boyfriend” and Osgood picks up Joe, Jerry, and Sugar to help them escape on his yacht. As they leave, Jerry reveals that he is actually a man and instead of rejecting him, Osgood simply says “Nobody’s perfect.”

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Watching this film and knowing the history of Marylin Monroe makes me a little sad because she comes across as the this vivacious (but a little dumb) powerhouse but was actually drunk, out of her mind on barbiturates, pregnant with a stillborn, and deeply depressed. She is some kind of actress to have her screen presence mismatch her actual feelings so greatly. This is one of the few movies that I wish I knew a little less because I spent a lot of time while she was on screen trying to tell if she was lucid or not (hint: if you look close, you can tell that she wasn’t).

This film is actually a remake of a 1935 French comedy, which explains some of random situations, and I have to director Billy Wilder because American audiences have generally had difficulty with French comedy. People in the US don’t tend to mix their serious violence into their comic set pieces, but Wilder made it work. If you think about it, there were a lot of comic chase scenes in which men who have just demonstrated their ability to commit cold blooded murder are running after a couple of men in drag. We shouldn’t laugh at a woman with such an alcohol problem that she can’t hold a job and is too stupid to even be able to hide it better. And yet I found myself smiling through the whole movie. 

My favorite thing about this film is actually Jack Lemmon. This is the earliest film of his that I have seen and I think he is fantastic. One of my very favorite actors, his work in this film and The Apartment (1960) made me a fan for life. He is actually third billed in Some Like It Hot, but I feel like he steals the show. 

This film flew right in the face of the Hays Code, since it showed two on-screen group assassinations, a busty Marilyn Monroe barely staying in her clothes, a one night stand in which a man tricks a helpless woman, homosexual undertones, and featured cross dressing. A film with all these aspects should not have existed in America under the code, but this one was nominated for five Academy Awards. None of these things seem like that big of a deal anymore, and the film laughably made the BFI list for Films for Children Up to the Age of 14. It’s now though of as a good kids movie.

Marilyn Monroe exudes confidence and sexuality in her role despite all of her problems. She also is kind of a hero for many in that she embodies that curvy women can be knockouts when they express that confidence. She never had a flat stomach and was quite overweight due to her pregnancy. She had measurements of 36-22-36 but was only 5′5″ meaning she was very chesty with very wide hips. She was quite the opposite of other beauties like Twiggy, Kate Moss, or Olivia Newton-John, and for this Marilyn basically stands alone. She was one-of-a-kind and I wish she would have had a happier life.

So does this film belong on the AFI top 100? Absolutely. It is nothing but star power in a crazy movie that helped take down the Hays Code and won a bunch of awards in the attempt. It is a great piece of Americana that deserves to be scene. Would I recommend it? Yes and I would say it is best enjoyed without doing any research beforehand. It is quite the ride in that so many things happen to the point that you wonder if it will end well for all the characters. That is the work of Billy Wilder and it is well worth watching.