Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot is a 1959 American black and white romantic comedy film set in 1929, directed and produced by Billy Wilder, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. The supporting cast includes George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee, and Nehemiah Persoff.

Plot
After witnessing a Mafia murder, slick saxophone player Joe (Tony Curtis) and his long-suffering buddy, Jerry (Jack Lemmon), improvise a quick plan to escape from Chicago with their lives. Disguising themselves as women, they join an all-female jazz band and hop a train bound for sunny Florida. While Joe pretends to be a millionaire to win the band's sexy singer, Sugar (Marilyn Monroe), Jerry finds himself pursued by a real millionaire (Joe E. Brown) as things heat up and the mobsters close in.

Why It Likes It Hot

 * 1) It was one of the films that completely destroyed the Hays Code, which was starting to die by the late 50s.
 * 2) After directing several dark and serious films such as Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, this film proves that Billy Wilder is just as capable of creating light-hearted and comedic films.
 * 3) The film also plays with the idea of homosexuality, and it features cross-dressing too. The film's broadly tolerant view of sexuality (plus the fact that it was Monroe's last successful role) helps to keep the film fresh all these decades later.
 * 4) For brief context, the film's based on the 1951 German musical comedy Fanfaren der Liebe, which was about two unemployed musicians who go to any lengths to find work, including disguising themselves as gypsies and blacks. Dressing in drag to join an all-women orchestra, they'd travel by train to a resort hotel for an extended engagement and fall for the band's singer while fending off advances from clueless but determined men. For the American remake in 1959, Wilder kept the drag idea (while dropping the gypsies and blackface treatment), but his version became a period piece tied to the St. Valentines Day Massacre, with the gangsters becoming a major force for the musicians -- now named Joe and Jerry -- to dress in drag. The gangster subplot helps create a suspense factor the original lacked and raise the film to be a superior remake that's even more memorable than the original.
 * 5) The film looks back to past, reworking old bits with modern technology and gently mocking faded styles and customs. It gives the current viewer a way of seeing the 1950s. Wilder saw the contraditions between lust and repression in popular culture. He seemed to be reverting to his past as a gigolo and a taxi driver giving 1959 viewers a whiff of decadence before calling everything a joke.
 * 6) While the majority of the plot of aforementioned Fanfaren der Liebe stays the same, the additions and alterations -- most notably the snappy, vivid dialogue -- are fairly telling.
 * 7) *Both films have train rides that rely on quick costume changes for jokes, but with Pullman berths instead of separate compartments, the American remake can indulge in much more intimate situations.
 * 8) *In the German film, a hotel manager became millionaire and yacht owner Osgood Fielding III, while the American remake has Osgood become a completely separate character.
 * 9) *Gaby, the heroine in the German film, was a cool, sophisticated brunette who quickly found out about the cross-dressing. In the American remake, the heroine was given to Marilyn Monroe, and the writers beefed up the part of the heroine -- now she's Sugar Kane Kowalczyk whose bad luck with men gave her a drinking problem.
 * 10) Possibly Marilyn Monroe's best film she's starred in, as she gives off a really great performance in this movie. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon also give off great performances too, with the two having well-done girl impressions.
 * 11) There's a plethora of hilarious moments that are enough to make the viewer laugh out loud.
 * 12) The costumes on Joe and Jerry are very well made and make them actually look like women. Although the film had to be shot in black-in-white since the color tests for the drag outfits were too garish.
 * 13) Wonderful dialogue that only makes the film funnier.
 * 14) The final line " Well, nobody's perfect".
 * 1) The final line " Well, nobody's perfect".

Trivia

 * The film's plot was inspired by the 1951 German film Fanfarn der Liebe.
 * Billy Wilder had initially approached Frank Sinatra and Anthony Perkins to co-star before choosing Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis.
 * United Artists initially wanted a bigger name than Jack Lemmon to headline the film. It wasn't until Marilyn Monroe was cast that Jack Lemmon was signed.
 * This film marked the first of seven films that Jack Lemmon made with director Billy Wilder. One of those films is The Apartment
 * Tony Curtis returned to the film for a 2002 stage performance where he performed the role of Osgood Fielding III.

Reception
Some Like It Hot received widespread acclaim from critics, and is considered among the best films of all time. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 58 reviews, with an average rating of 9.02/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Some Like It Hot: A spry, quick-witted farce that never drags." Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 97 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Awards and nominations
It won 1 Academy Award Best Costume Design.

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