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Some Like it Hot
1959 - NR - 89 Mins.
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| Director: Billy Wilder | | Producer: Billy Wilder | | Written By: I. A. L. Diamond, Billy Wilder | | Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O'Brien |
| Review by: John Ulmer |
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I give that booty 2 thumbs up
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"Some Like it Hot." I'll admit now that I've never been a huge fan of this film. I just never really found it extremely funny or witty. I was pretty disappointed when it got # 1 comedy ever on AFI's list, because I've seen comedies much better than this. It's good, perhaps great (just maybe), but not one of THE greatest.
Before you think I am one of those people who have a thing against films from the 40s through the 70s, think again. It's the exact opposite. I just don't find anything special here. I would choose "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Citizen Kane" over this film any day.
The story starts with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as down-on-their-luck band players, tired of their jobs as band players in a women's singing group. Right while the men are playing their instruments on stage, some police bust in the joint and arrest some gangsters in the place they're playing. The men flee from the scene and make their way out of town. On the run, they end up witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Escaping by the hairs on their necks, the two men dress as women and join a traveling women's band where they meet Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), with whom both the men fall in love with. If only they weren't women!
The movie has some good gags, and it is in no way a bad movie, but it's not as great as you hear it is. The fact that it is on so many "great movies" lists is showing the point that sometimes people are afraid to speak out against critically-acclaimed movies.
I think what made this movie so popular is because for its time it was very controversial. You just never saw men dressing in drag. It was unheard of. But now people seem to make movies like this all the time ("Sorority Boys," "Nuns on the Run"), and I think that (perhaps) the charm has worn off a bit after seeing so many drag films, because I sure did find this funnier the first time I saw it.
Jack Lemmon steals the show with his funny humor. He's a funny guy, but one thing I think they overdid was when Lemmon starts to really believe he's a woman and starts saying he's going to marry a guy in the bar downstairs. Hands down this could get a PG-13 rating nowadays for that kind of material. It actually kind of gives you the creeps (seeing Lemmon talking about marrying another man, that is).
There's a gag where Tony Curtis dresses up as a rich man (didn't he disguise himself with Cary Grant's real name: Archie?) -and gets in a romance with Monroe. That was pretty funny. But I never found myself rolling over in laughter like I had expected.
People talk about Marilyn Monroe all the time, but I don't think she's a good actress or an extremely pretty one. I was watching the film with someone else who commented that she looks "chunky" in the movie. It's kind of true--she looks a bit pudgy, and while nothing's wrong with that, I don't see why she is such a sex symbol. Even to this day people talk about her and make countless documentaries about her. Conspiracy theories of murder aside, she's not all that special.
Billy Wilder, who has brought us classics like "Sunset Boulevard" and "Double Indemnity" is the director here, but I would rather watch those two films over again. So, yes, the movie is funny, but is it great? No, it's not. It's just funny.
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