Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot is a 1959 American romantic comedy film directed, produced and co-written by Billy Wilder. It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee, Grace Lee Whitney and Nehemiah Persoff in supporting roles. The screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on a screenplay by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan from the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love. The film is about two musicians who disguise themselves by dressing as women in order to escape from mafia gangsters whom they witnessed committing a crime.

Some Like It Hot opened to critical and commercial success and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. The film received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning for Best Costume Design. In 1989, the Library of Congress selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film was produced without approval from the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code), because it features LGBT-related themes, including cross-dressing. The code had been gradually weakening in its scope since the early 1950s, due to greater social tolerance for previously taboo topics in film, but it was still officially enforced until the mid-1960s. The overwhelming success of Some Like It Hot is considered one of the reasons behind the replacement of the Hays Code.

Plot

In February 1929, in Prohibition-era Chicago, Joe is a jazz saxophone player and an irresponsible, impulsive ladies' man; his anxious friend Jerry is a jazz double bass player. They work in a speakeasy owned by gangster "Spats" Colombo. Tipped off by informant "Toothpick" Charlie, the police raid the joint. Joe and Jerry escape, but later accidentally witness Spats and his henchmen gunning down "Toothpick" and his gang in revenge (inspired by the real-life Saint Valentine's Day Massacre).[citation needed] Spats and his gang see them as they flee. Broke, terrified, and desperate to get out of town, Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women named Josephine and Daphne so they can join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, an all-female band headed (by train) to Miami. Joe and Jerry meet Sugar Kane, the band's vocalist and ukulele player.

Joe and Jerry become obsessed with Sugar and compete for her affection while maintaining their disguises. Sugar confides to "Josephine" that she has sworn off male saxophone players, who have taken advantage of her in the past. She hopes to find a gentle, bespectacled millionaire in Florida. During the forbidden drinking and partying on the train, "Josephine" and "Daphne" become close friends with Sugar, and struggle to remember that they are supposed to be girls and cannot make passes at her.

Once in Miami, Joe woos Sugar by assuming a second disguise as millionaire Junior, the heir to Shell Oil, while feigning indifference to her. An actual millionaire, the much-married aging mama's-boy Osgood Fielding III, persistently pursues "Daphne", whose refusals only increase his appetite. He invites "her" for a champagne supper on his yacht, New Caledonia. Joe convinces Jerry to keep Osgood occupied onshore so that "Junior" can take Sugar to Osgood's yacht, and pass it off as his own. Once on the yacht, "Junior" tells Sugar that psychological trauma has left him impotent and frigid, but that he would marry anyone who could cure him. Sugar tries to arouse him, with considerable success. Meanwhile, "Daphne" and Osgood dance the tango ("La Cumparsita") till dawn. When Joe and Jerry get back to the hotel, Jerry announces that Osgood has proposed marriage to "Daphne" and that he, as Daphne, has accepted, anticipating an instant divorce and huge cash settlement when his ruse is revealed. Joe convinces Jerry that he cannot actually marry Osgood.

The hotel hosts a conference for "Friends of Italian Opera", which is in fact a major meeting of the national crime syndicate, presided over by "Little Bonaparte". Spats and his gang recognize Joe and Jerry as the witnesses they have been looking for. Joe and Jerry, fearing for their lives, realize they must quit the band and leave the hotel. Joe breaks Sugar's heart by telling her that he, Junior, must marry a woman of his father's choosing and move to Venezuela. Joe and Jerry evade Spats' men by hiding under a table at the syndicate banquet. "Little Bonaparte" has Spats and his men killed at the banquet; again, Joe and Jerry are witnesses and they flee through the hotel. Joe, dressed as Josephine, sees Sugar onstage singing a lament to lost love. He runs onto the platform and kisses her, causing Sugar to realize that Josephine and Junior are the same person.

Jerry persuades Osgood to take "Daphne" and "Josephine" away on his yacht. Sugar runs from the stage at the end of her performance and jumps aboard Osgood's launch just as it is leaving the dock with Joe, Jerry, and Osgood. Joe confesses his deception to Sugar and tells her that he is not good enough for her, but Sugar wants him anyway. Meanwhile, Jerry lists reasons why "Daphne" and Osgood cannot marry, ranging from a smoking habit to infertility. Osgood dismisses them all; he loves Daphne and is determined to go through with the marriage. Exasperated, Jerry removes his wig and snaps, "I'm a man!" Osgood, unfazed, replies: "Well, nobody's perfect."

Cast

• Marilyn Monroe as Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk, a ukulele player and singer
• Tony Curtis as Joe/"Josephine"/"Shell Oil Junior", a saxophone player
• Jack Lemmon as Jerry (Gerald)/"Daphne", a double bass player
• George Raft as "Spats" Colombo, a mobster from Chicago
• Pat O'Brien as Agent Mulligan
• Joe E. Brown as Osgood Fielding III
• Nehemiah Persoff as "Little Bonaparte", a mobster
• Joan Shawlee as Sweet Sue, the bandleader of "Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators"
• Dave Barry as Mister Bienstock, the band manager for "Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators"
• Billy Gray as Sig Poliakoff, Joe and Jerry's agent in Chicago
• Barbara Drew as Nellie Weinmeyer, Poliakoff's secretary
• Grace Lee Whitney as Rosella (Fiddle)
• George E. Stone as "Toothpick" Charlie, a gangster who is killed by "Spats" Colombo
• Mike Mazurki as Spats' henchman
• Harry Wilson as Spats' henchman
• Edward G. Robinson Jr. as Johnny Paradise, a gangster who kills "Spats" Colombo
• Beverly Wills as Dolores, a trombone player, and Sugar's apartment friend
• Al Breneman as the bellboy (uncredited)

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features four songs performed by Marilyn Monroe, nine songs composed by Adolph Deutsch, as well as two songs performed by jazz artist Matty Malneck.