| Some Like It Hot | |
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theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Billy Wilder |
| Produced by | Billy Wilder |
| Screenplay by | Billy Wilder I. A. L. Diamond |
| Story by | Robert Thoeren Michael Logan |
| Starring | Marilyn Monroe Tony Curtis Jack Lemmon George Raft Joe E. Brown Pat O'Brien |
| Music by | Adolph Deutsch |
| Cinematography | Charles Lang |
| Editing by | Arthur P. Schmidt |
| Studio | Mirisch Company |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | March 29, 1959 (US) |
| Running time | 122 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,883,848 |
| Box office | $25 million |
Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond of a 1935 French movie, Fanfare d'Amour, from the story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan, which was itself remade in 1951 by German director Kurt Hoffmann as Fanfaren der Liebe. However, both the French and German films were without the gangsters that are an integral part of the plot of Some Like It Hot. Wilder's working title for his film was Fanfares of Love, then Not Tonight, Josephine before he decided on Some Like It Hot as its release title.
During 1981, after the worldwide success of the French comedy La Cage aux Folles, United Artists re-released Some Like It Hot to theatres. In 2000, the American Film Institute listed Some Like It Hot as the greatest American comedy film of all time.
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Two struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon), witness the Saint Valentine's Day massacre of 1929. When the Chicago gangsters, led by "Spats" Colombo (George Raft), see them, the two flee for their lives. They escape and decide to leave town, taking a job that requires them to disguise themselves as women, playing in an all-girl musical band headed to Florida. Calling themselves Josephine and Geraldine (later Jerry changes his pseudonym to Daphne), they join the band and board a train. Joe and Jerry both become enamored of "Sugar Kane" (Marilyn Monroe), the band's vocalist and ukulele player, and struggle for her affection while maintaining their disguises. In Florida, Joe woos Sugar by assuming a second disguise as a millionaire named "Junior", the heir to Shell Oil, while mimicking Cary Grant's voice. An actual millionaire, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), becomes enamored of Jerry in his Daphne guise. One night Osgood asks Daphne out to his yacht. Joe convinces Daphne to keep Osgood ashore while he goes on the yacht with Sugar. That night Osgood proposes to Daphne who, in a state of excitement, accepts, believing he can receive a large settlement from Osgood immediately following their wedding ceremony.
When the mobsters arrive at the same hotel for a conference honoring "Friends of Italian Opera", Spats and his gang see Joe and Jerry. After several humorous chases (and witnessing yet another mob murder, this time of Spats himself and his crew), Jerry, Joe, Sugar, and Osgood escape to the millionaire's yacht. Enroute, Joe reveals to Sugar his true identity and Sugar tells Joe that she's in love with him regardless. Joe tells her that he is not good enough for her, that she would be getting the "fuzzy end of the lollipop" yet again, but Sugar loves him anyway. Jerry, for his part, tries to explain to Osgood that he cannot marry him, launching into a range of objections from insisting that he can't get married in his mother's dress ("We are not built the same way,") to the tearful confession that he can "never have children." Osgood dismisses them all and remains determined to go through with the marriage. Finally, exasperated, Jerry removes his wig and shouts, "I'm a man!", only for Osgood to override this final revelation by uttering the film's memorable last line, "Well, nobody's perfect."
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Aside from the title, the film bears no resemblance to a Bob Hope movie of the same name released in 1939.
The film was planned originally to be filmed in color, but after several screen tests, it was changed to black and white because of a very obvious 'green tint' around the heavy make-up required by Curtis and Lemmon when portraying Josephine and Daphne. The Florida segment, at the fictitious "Seminole Ritz", was filmed at the Hotel Del Coronado in Coronado, California.[1]
Some Like It Hot received a "C" (Condemned) rating from the National Legion of Decency (formerly the Catholic Legion of Decency). The film, along with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and several other films, contributed to the end of the Production Code in the mid-1960s. It was released by United Artists without the MPAA logo in the credits or title sequence, since the film did not receive Production Code approval.
Tony Curtis is frequently quoted as saying that kissing Marilyn Monroe was like "kissing Hitler". However, during a 2001 interview with Leonard Maltin, Curtis stated that he had never made this claim.[2] In his 2008 autobiography, Curtis notes that he did make the statement to the film crew, but it was meant in a joking manner.[3] During his appearance at the Jules Verne Festival in France (2008), Curtis revealed on the set of Laurent Ruquier's TV show that he and Monroe were lovers in the late 1940s when they were first struggling for recognition in films.
The film's title is a line from the nursery rhyme "Pease Porridge Hot". It also occurs as dialogue in the film when Joe, as "Junior", tells Sugar he prefers classical music over hot jazz. The film's working title was Fanfares of Love, then Not Tonight, Josephine, before the release title was finally decided as Some Like It Hot.
The film was awarded an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Orry-Kelly) and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Lemmon), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Ted Haworth, Edward G. Boyle), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Academy Award for Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.[4]
It won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy. Marilyn Monroe won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy, and Jack Lemmon for Best Actor in Musical or Comedy.
The film has been acclaimed worldwide as one of the greatest films ever made. In 1989, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," going in on the first year of voting.
In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the eighth greatest comedy film of all time. In 2002, Channel 4 ranked Some Like It Hot as the fifth greatest film ever made in their 100 Greatest Films Poll.
American Film Institute Lists
In 2011, ABC aired a primetime special, Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, that counted down the best films chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and People. Some Like it Hot was selected as the #3 Best Comedy.
An unsold television pilot was filmed by Mirisch Productions in 1961 featuring Vic Damone and Tina Louise. As a favour to the production company, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis agreed to film cameo appearances, returning as their original characters, Daphne and Josephine, at the beginning of the pilot. Their appearance sees them in a hospital where Jerry (Lemmon) is being treated for his impacted back tooth and Joe (Curtis) is the same O blood type.[5]
During 1972, a musical play based on the screenplay of the film, entitled Sugar, opened on Broadway, starring Elaine Joyce, Robert Morse, Tony Roberts and Cyril Ritchard, with book by Peter Stone, lyrics by Bob Merrill, and (all-new) music by Jule Styne. A 1991 production of this show in London featured Tommy Steele and retained the original title. In 2002, Tony Curtis performed in a stage production of the film. He portrayed the character originally played by Joe E. Brown.
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