Cross-dressing and so much more: one of the funniest comedies ever

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2007)

Its reputation holds true: "Some Like It Hot" is an inimitable classic of Hollywood comedy. Though men dressing up as women (and vice versa) is one of the oldest gags in the book, Billy Wilder brings this plot device to its culmination.
It probably begins with the fact that in "Some Like It Hot," there are two men in disguise out-of-work musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon)instead of just one. Sometimes, in comedy, nothing succeeds like excess, and with two cross-dressers, the movie can spin out twice as many funny situations. Also, the two men act as one another's foils and confidants, in a kind of friendly rivalry.
In all comedies of this type, the disguised hero inevitably falls in love with a beautiful girl (here, Sugar Kane, played by Marilyn Monroe) and has an old man fall in love with him (Osgood Fielding, played by Joe E. Brown). "Some Like it Hot" splits this plot between its two heroesJoe gets the girl, Jerry gets the guyand then takes things in unexpected directions. Joe creates another persona for himself as the millionaire "Junior" in order to woo Sugar, which allows Curtis to do a hilarious (and anachronistic) impression of Cary Grant. Meanwhile, Jerry gets struck by a sort of gender confusion, which allows Lemmon to give the movie's standout performance. Jerry is always more comfortable as a girl than Joe iswatch the gleam in his eye when he announces that his name is "Daphne"and when Osgood proposes to him, he goes over the moon. He says it's because he figures that he can get a quick divorce and lifetime alimony, but really, it's obvious that his girlish pride has been flattered.
Sugar Kane is the quintessential Marilyn Monroe rolethe ditzy, vulnerable sex symbol from the wrong side of the tracks. I don't care how much trouble she caused on the set; her performance is completely adorable. Interestingly, Osgood is just as sweet and trusting as Sugarperhaps even more, since he is asexual to the point of naïveté.
There's so much great stuff in "Some Like It Hot" that some of it even goes overlooked. I tend to forget that there are funny Mafia-movie parodies at the beginning and end (Joe and Jerry are forced to don their disguises to hide after witnessing a Mob murder). The movie really presents a wide variety of humor, not just two hours of pointing out how silly it is for a man to act like a woman. Anyone who loves good-natured, slightly subversive, impeccably crafted, high-energy comedies will certainly like it hot.