CLASSIC MOVIE CORNER: 'Some Like It Hot' (1959)

“Some Like It Hot” (1959)

MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Joe E. Brown

The Gist: Here’s a tale of boy-meets-girl-who’s really a boy — when he’s not acting like a girl.

The Story: In Prohibition-era Chicago, it’s hard to make an honest buck. Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) are two musicians playing at a Mafia-run speakeasy. They lose that gig after cops raid the joint. Next, they witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which gangster Spats Columbo (Raft) rubs out his competition. Spats doesn’t like loose ends. Joe and Jerry decide to save their skins by becoming “Josephine” and “Daphne.” They join an all-girl band and head to Florida, where the group has a running engagement playing at a ritzy hotel. It gets harder for the pair to maintain their cover, as they both go ga-ga over songstress Sugar Kane (Monroe).

The Review: The American Film Institute in 2000 named this the funniest American film ever. There’s something inherently hilarious about manly men acting otherwise. It’s a persistent cultural taboo that yields laughs. “Some Like It Hot” makes the most of what could have been a cheap gag. Deception is the running theme, with gin joints disguised as funeral parlors and gangsters pretending to be innocent Italian opera fans. Curtis even takes on the challenge of playing a second male alter ego. It’s a complex web, but most of the time, the audience knows the lies from the truth. The humor stems from the tension between the two. A risque-for-its-time surprise ending reveals the joke is on our two heroes.

The Classic Quote: Osgood (Brown): “You must be quite a girl.” Daphne: “Wanna bet?”

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)