Some Like it Hot (1959) is widely celebrated as one of the best movie comedies ever made and I would be hard-pressed to disagree.
It opens like an episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire with mobsters being chased down by a police car while bullets and shotgun shells are fired all around. If you didn’t know Some Like it Hot was a comedy you wouldn’t guess by this opening which takes itself as seriously as any gangster flick of the time. This is perhaps where the film finds a lot of it’s comedic strength because when the situation of the film evolves into the outrageous cross dressing satire it becomes – it’s all the more funnier.
The film stars Tony Curtis as Joe and Jack Lemmon as Jerry: two musicians who find themselves very much in the wrong place at the wrong time when they become witness to some gangland executions. They manage to escape the scene but need to leave the state before the mobsters find them. Totally broke – their only option is to pose as two women in an all girl musical band on their way to perform at a hotel in Florida for a few weeks. The perfect getaway plan – except for the fact that they are not women!
Aboard the train for Florida this outrageous getaway scenario really kicks into comedic gear. It’s also where Marilyn Monroe’s character, Sugar, is introduced: a woman who seems to have been unlucky in love and drowns her sorrows with a lot of alcohol. Both of the men immediately fall for her good looks and the during the train ride the two men dressed as women both try to vie for her attentions. This leads to a very memorable scene where Sugar (having been done a favour by Jerry earlier) turns up at his bunk on the train during the night to say thank you. This late night visit soon turns into a party when the other girls on board the train discover they are drinking whiskey. Sugar goes to get ice for their drinks allowing a chance for Joe to keep her company chipping the ice while Jerry is left in the bunk with all the other girls. It’s a great little scene that is funny and exciting. Funny in the situation that spirals out of control (a central mechanic in the comedy of the film) and exciting in Joe and Jerry’s competition to get closer to Sugar. That the women’s music band leader does not take kindly to drinking also lends the party a fun yet dangerous element.
Fun in the face of danger is one of the film’s main attractions. Throughout the film we are reminded that Joe and Jerry are on the run from men who want to murder them as the only witnesses to a crime. Furthermore there is the danger of the men being discovered though their disguises as women for what they really are. This means that in every scene where the men are not alone they have to keep up appearances and be as convincing as women as they can be – leading to some exceptionally silly situations. Later in the film Jerry finds himself the apple of a rich man’s eye who takes him for a very lovely lady and wants to marry him. This ridiculous set up leads to the last and best punch line in the film and I won’t spoil it you haven’t seen it already.
Some Like it Hot is a great comedy that is still funny today over 50 years later. I laughed a lot watching it and I also really enjoyed the ongoing plot of the musicians escaping from the mob too. Marilyn Monroe brings that unique charm and allure that no starlet has quite been able to replicate since and stirs in a perfect measure of romance into this mobster getaway cross dressing adventure comedy. Some Like it Hot is just over two hours long (rare for a comedy) but successfully remains funny and exciting throughout – as the now late Roger Ebert said “No good film is too long”.
Darran Murphy
Find out more about Darran and his work at foxxiecinnamon