The Odd Couple 3 (Some Like It Hot (DVD))

Member Name: ihatebroccoli

Product:	Some Like It Hot (DVD)
Date:	14/11/00 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Jack Lemmon in a dress

Disadvantages: Lack of real ukulele playing

aka "Not tonight Josephine!"

Stars:
Marilyn Monroe (Sugar Kane (Kowalczyk))
Jack Lemmon, (Jerry/Daphne)
Tony Curtis (Joe/Josephine)

Directed by Billy Wilder (the man responsible for one of my other all time favourites – Double Indemnity (1944)) Some Like It Hot is a film *everyone* should see, and the sooner the better. I have spoken to people who have seen it (it was re-released in selected cinemas recently) who can’t believe they have not watched it before now. This has got to be one of the best films of all time, well one of the most original anyway, and I’m about to tell you why…

Well I’ll begin at the beginning, seeing as that is probably the best place to start. Jack Lemmon (Jerry) and Tony Curtis (Joe) play two jazz musicians looking for work in Chicago, who mistakenly witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. They have to get out of town fast, and preferably undercover, and so get in touch with their agent to try and arrange a gig away from Chicago. The boys overhear a conversation between their agent and someone on the telephone who wants a Saxophone player and a Bass player for a band travelling to Florida. Joe and Jerry are immediately enthusiastic, as well as desperate to get out of town, and jump at the chance without knowing the terms and conditions of contract, these being, that they have to be women, as it is an all-girl band! This is the main source of humour throughout the film, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon dressed as women, and all the associated “readjusting of boobs” and straightening the seams of their tights, and having their wigs on the right way around etc…

Monroe as always looks fantastic, and at one point is wearing a dress on stage whilst playing in the band, which almost looks as if she is topless! She has the dumb blonde role yet again, but plays it perfectly. She is bubbly and voluptuous, and an instant attraction for
her leading men, although Tony Curtis did say those famous words of her after this film, that: “Kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler”. She is wonderfully flirtatious, and her voice is incredibly sexy, as well as her magnificent ukulele playing *wink wink*.

The cross-dressing humour is just one of the aspects which makes this movie so funny the other, is the casting. Jack Lemmon is one of my favourite actors of all time, and he is just fantastic as “Daphne”. The humour created between the shenanigans of Lemmon and Curtis is nothing short of brilliance! They are a perfect double act, virtually laying the foundations for Lemmon’s Felix Unger in 1968s The Odd Couple in which he starred with the late Walter Matthau. A lot of the confusion occurs when Tony Curtis’ character develops an attraction to Sugar, but, being as he is “supposed” to be a woman, and Sugar’s friend at that, he cannot make a move, and instead, has to dress up yet again, as the rich captain of a mooring yacht in order to attract Sugar’s attention.

One of the best scenes is when the girl band are travelling on the train, and Jerry/Daphne decides to have a party in her (his) quarters of the train to entice Sugar to join him, and eventually *all* the girls turn up, and try and cram themselves into the tiny bunk bed space. This has to set the record for the most people in a bunk bed, on a moving train, on film.

Some Like It Hot does so much better than so many of those fifties sex comedies. It is genuinely funny, and cute, and incredibly watchable. There are pretty dolls, funny guys, funny dolls that are guys, the occasional mobster, and some great acting by Lemmon and Curtis. Monroe is every bit the sex icon in this film, with her breathless seductive voice, platinum hair and shimmery dresses, she makes the ultimate focus for her male leads. However, despite Curtis’ rumoured “Hitler” reference to h
er, this was only part of her problems on set. Apparently, she had notorious difficulties just reading simple lines, one in particular being “Where’s the bourbon?”, which Director Billy Wilder had to tape to the inside of a draw, so that Marilyn could remember it! Interestingly, Monroe’s character is particularly attracted by “a man with glasses”, and this was one of the reasons she was attracted to playwright Arthur Miller in real life.

A classic film, which has been given the credit it deserves (and an albeit brief cinema re-release!). It has a terrific soundtrack, with Marilyn’s superb voice - “I Wanna Be Loved By You”, “I’m Through With Love”, and lots of hairy jazz, terrifically magnetic characters, and ridiculously funny situations. Go and watch it now!

Classic Quotes:

Daphne/Jerry: Have I got things to tell you! I am engaged!
Josephine/Joe: Who is the lucky girl?
Daphne/Jerry: I am!

Sugar Kane: It's the story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

Josephine/Joe: But you're not a girl, you're a guy! And why would a guy want to marry a guy?
Daphne/Jerry: Security!

Summary: