Movie Of The Week: Some Like It Hot

Once again I bring you a Billy Wilder masterpiece for Movie Of The Week... ZOWIE!

This time it's MGM's 1959 hit "Some Like It Hot", starring Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and in argueably her best performance... Marilyn Monroe.

Take 2 broke musicians on the run from the mob during prohibition forced to disguise themselves as females in an all girl band, add 1 smoking hot female singer with a drinking problem and shake with Billy Wilder as writer/director and my friends you have a perfect comedy. Drag comedies were not exactly the top drawing films in the 1950's, but this one hit it out of the park.

Tony Curtis plays Joe, a smooth talking, sax playing ladies man that has rotten luck at the track. His best friend and partner Jerry, a weak spined bull fiddle player, is played by Jack Lemmon.
Thru a series of improbabilities they wind up witnessing a St. Valentines style massacre in a Chicago garage. Their only escape is to disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band on their way to Miami.

Enter Josephine and Daphne.

Wearing their new disguises Josephine (Curtis) and Daphne (Lemmon) board the train to Florida with Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators. In the process they meet Honey Kane (Monroe) and immediately fall in love. Competetion for her affection ensues. But how do you woo a woman disguised as one yourself? That my friends is where the Billy Wilder magic begins.

Also added to the madness is one horny, rich, dirty old man played to perfection by comedy legend Joe E. Brown as Osgood Fielding III. Friends, it just doesn't get any better than this.

Some Like It Hot is unquestionably one of the Top 10 Comedies of all time. Possibly Top 5 and argueably Top 3. There is such a flow between Marilyn's sexuality and the comedic talents of Curtis, Lemmon and Brown that homophobia never enters the mind... Even during this exchange:

Curtis: "You're not a girl! You're a guy! Why would a guy want to marry a guy?"

Lemmon: "Security!"

You owe it to yourself to watch this masterpiece and see for yourself what real comedy is all about.

On a 1 to 10 scale, this film earns a solid 12.

"Nobody's perfect!"