This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as unveiled in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.
(M) ★★★★★
Director: Billy Wilder.
Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Nehemiah Persoff, Joan Shawlee, Dave Barry, Billy Gray, Barbara Drew, Grace Lee Whitney, George E. Stone, Mike Mazurki, Harry Wilson, Edward G. Robinson Jr., Beverly Wills.
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| "We will now perform Raining Blood in D minor." |
The American Film Institute loves making lists (which I fully approve of) and among its many lists is a compendium of the greatest American comedies of all time. Some Like It Hot is #1 on the list.
The AFI is not alone in this line of thinking - BBC Culture's poll of film critics from 2017 also put it at #1. But even if you don't rate it as the GOAT, it's impossible to dispute its greatness. Still whip-smart, still laugh-out-loud funny, Some Like It Hot is hugely influential, but also sits in the very middle of a Venn diagram of awesomeness. Take the best of Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond's 12 script collaborations, take the finest moments of Hollywood heavyweights Monroe, Lemmon and Curtis, and right in the middle sits this boundary-pushing laugh fest.
From its opening moments, in which a guns-blazing car chase careens through the streets of prohibition-era Chicago, Some Like It Hot grabs you. Its main characters aren't even prominent until we get the setting well and truly set; in fact, there are several great gags before we properly meet Curtis and Lemmon's down-at-heel musos Joe and Jerry. The reveal of the casket full of booze, the funeral parlour-as-speakeasy, every wisecrack that comes out of the mouths of Pat O'Brien's Agent Mulligan and George Raft's mobster "Spats" Colombo - the laughs come like bullets out of a Tommy gun.
The banter between Joe and Jerry (supposedly a reflection of Wilder and Diamond's own friendship) sets up the characters beautifully, and we love them instantly, despite the fact Joe is a cad and Jerry is a pushover. Its plot mechanics are like a well oiled machine too - by the time they witness a mob hit and have to go on the run, the main story's cross-dressing carrot has been well and truly dangled. We know they're going to end up in an all-girl band, hiding out from gangsters, but it's still funny when we finally see them wobbling along a train platform in high heels for the first time.
There's a great danger that Some Like It Hot's cross-dressing premise would age poorly, but it hasn't. This is largely due to the film never being mean-spirited in its comedy (despite the fact Joe's an utter bastard), but also because, sadly, men being shit to women has never gone away.
And that's part of Some Like It Hot's daring and agelessness. While some argue it's about identity and being who you want to be (which is true to an extent), its strongest thematic strands are about gender politics and perspective. Joe and Jerry, by moonlighting as Josephine and Daphne, get a taste of their own dickish pervy-ness. Jerry goes from leering like a horny teen to being outraged at a pinch on the bottom, and understanding how finding someone who treats you right is important. Joe comes to see how his past dalliances have left a trail of Sugar Kane's in his wake; sad, broken women who deserve better than to be taken advantage of and left languishing at the bottom of a bottle.
"The basic plot," writes critic Barry Norman, "is enough on its own to sustain a first-rate, full-length comedy-thriller. But to this already ingenious blend of slapstick and sophistication is added a wickedly sharp examination of gender and sexual politics."
While the cross-dressing-musos-on-the-run plot gives the film its strong skeleton, these themes around gender politics and perspective give it its brain. And then there's the heart, personified by Marilyn Monroe in a role that cuts devastatingly close to her own truth. As Sugar Kane, she's a talented performer (her performance of I Wanna Be Loved By You is a showstopper), and smarter than she gives herself credit for. She gets screwed over again and again by men who take advantage of her looks and charms, only to leave her "blue" and turning to substances (in this case, booze) in an effort to numb the pain. It's heartbreaking, and in Some Like It Hot, you desperately hope Sugar gets to live happily ever after - a finale Monroe herself never got.
Monroe's off-screen troubles (which manifested on set as flubbed lines, high take counts, and turning up late) are invisible on screen, and she gives the performance of her career. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die's Angela Errigo called it Monroe "at her most enchanting". "Monroe's forlorn-funny turn, maddening though it was for her costars and director to capture, is mythic," Errigo wrote.
Monroe's performance as Sugar Kane is a rose among the thorns of Curtis and Lemmon's turns. Curtis gives not one but three great comedy performances - the acid-tongued straight-man, a reliable older sister type, and a goofy comedic turn as a pretend billionaire. And yet it's Lemmon who steals the film. He reveals hints of confidence and comfort as Daphne that Jerry doesn't possess, while hitting every punchline out of the park in a dialled-up performance that would influence so many comedy actors after. Tell me his work here doesn't echo through the likes of Jim Carrey, Robin Williams or Will Ferrell.
Some Like It Hot won three out of three Golden Globes (for Monroe, Lemmon, and best comedy/musical), but lost five out of six Oscars, with Aussie costume designer Orry-Kelly the only winner. Orry-Kelly's dresses for Monroe were almost as risque as the film's homosexual flavours, all of which threw a middle finger at the ultra-restrictive Hays Code that dominated and censored Hollywood Some Like It Hot helped throw the code in the bin, liberating American cinema in the process.
It's a rare comedy that has something to say in between its punchlines, and it's an even rarer comedy that pushes the boundaries of the time while still proving to be a box office hit. Some Like It Hot managed all this, and gave us some of Wilder and Diamond's best writing, as well as top-tier performances from Monroe, Curtis and Lemmon. The cherry on top is the closing line - Joe E. Brown's nonchalant "Nobody's perfect" is not only hilarious but oddly philosophical and wonderfully celebratory of homosexuality in a pre-Stonewall era.
"Nobody's perfect" indeed, but Some Like It Hot just about is.
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