Some
Like It Hot
(1959)
Rated: PG
Runtime: 2 Hours
Reviewer: Dale
Grade: A+I was outraged when I saw the AFI list of the Hundred funniest comedies and saw this one listed as number one. I had seen it, yes, but it had been years ago and I didn't remember thinking that it had been all that great. What right had they to make it number one? And it's such a safe choice. If they wanted people to sit up and take notice, why not make "Animal House" or " Airplane!" or, well, uh, everyone expects it of me so I may as well say it, "Ghostbusters".
But then I took another look at this film and you know what? I don't know if it would be number one on my funniest comedy list, but it would certainly be in the top twenty-five.
I never realized how hilarious this film was. From start to finish, there is not one line that doesn't get its intended laugh. There is not one line that falls short. There is not even, really, one cheap laugh. This is particularly rare when you consider that this movie is about two men dressing like women. Usually, every gag in a movie like this revolves around the men in the movie dressing like women. Many of the jokes do use that as a springboard (otherwise why make the damn movie?) but they advance from there in a way that most other cross-dressing comedies would kill to do. Then again, other cross-dressing comedies don't have Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in them.
Curtis is a smooth-talking ladies man with a gambling debt that might rival the national debt. Lemmon is his friend, who has fallen for his schemes more time than he would care to count. He bitches a lot, but he always gives in to his friend's hair-brained schemes. In a way, he is Ethel to Curtis's smoothie Lucy.
One day, Curtis concocts a hair-brained scheme of his own. When they lose their job as musicians at a speakeasy during a raid, they are saddened to find that the only musician job available is a gig in an all-woman's band on its way to Florida (which sounds great since Curtis has just hocked their coats to bet at the dog track). Lemmon says that they could dress as women and get the gravy gig. However, Curtis is skeptical. Until they become the only witnesses to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, that is, and need a way to get out of town unnoticed. What better than to dress as women and head to Florida?
On the train, they both meet and fall for Sugar Cane ( "I changed from Sugar Horowitz")
played by the masturbatory fantasy that is Marilyn Monroe. (Incidentally, just for banging Marilyn Monroe and landing a babe like Jackie, I think we should have JFK carved into Mount Rushmore.) Marilyn plays Marilyn here, but who else would you want her to play? Lotta Lenya? She's sweet and innocent and seductive all at once, an act that most aside from Marilyn couldn't pull off. Legend has it that she could remember none of her lines. They said that she needed 30 takes to nail the line "It's me, Sugar!" And Tony Curtis once remarked that kissing her was "like kissing Hitler". Well, if Hitler looked like that, all the Jews would probably be dead and we'd all be speaking German. In short, Monroe is everything that generations of men have wanted women to be. What more can you say?
But Lemmon and Curtis steal the show. They have a wonderful rapport and it isn't hard at all to buy these two as men who have known each other for years and know exactly what the other is going to do. Comedy is all about situations, when you get right down to it, and how normal people react to those situations. Every situation that the men find themselves in in this film gives them room to play, and sets up lines that have rarely been matched since. Every word out of Lemmon's mouth, practically, is hilarious. And the very sight of him in a dress, dancing with an old millionaire and clutching a flower between his teeth is enough to send a man into gales of mad laughter. Curtis ain't bad either. He's great when lecturing Lemmon on how to act like a lady and when affecting an amusing Cary Grant impression to lure Monroe into the act.
This movie has aged very well. It's still sharp, still a lot of fun, and it still moves with screwball, manic speed. It has some nice observations about the opposite sexes and relationships and a few hilarious spoofs on organized crime and crime movies. It even has one of the greatest last lines in film history (if you think I am about to ruin it for you, you don't know me very well). Billy Wilder is lauded as a comic genius. On the basis of this movie, it's easy to see why.
But I still lean more toward " Ghostbusters". I can't help it.