This One's Still Red Hot!

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2015)

Some Like It Hot is a wacky, clever, ludicrous comedy that starts off like a firecracker and keeps on throwing off lively sparks till the very end.
The plot is a classic screwball. The setup: It's Chicago, 1929; the era of jazz, prohibition, bootlegging and gangland rub- outs. Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are two hack jazz musicians who inadvertently witness a mob killing on St. Valentine's Day. In a desperate bid to flee the scene, the boys jump onto a train to Florida disguised as Josephine and Daphne ("I never liked the sound of 'Geraldine'"), the newest members of an all-girl jazz band where they fall for attractive, bubble-headed ukulele- player Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). Once in Florida, Joe poses as the tycoon Junior, sleazily designed to fulfill Sugar's every fantasy of a man while Daphne, carried along on the tides of farcical necessity, is propositioned by an addle-brained millionaire Osgood (Joe E. Brown). Seductions and obvious complications ensue. Identities become fluid and changeable. Just when things start looking up, the goons arrive for a mobster's convention at the same hotel where the girls and the two erstwhile guys are playing. And soon a volley of bullets and witty lines fly by!
Fifty-five years on, Billy Wilder's charade has lost none of its luster, largely because of the absolutely riotous turns by the three principal cast members. Monroe's performance as the fuzzy blonde Sugar has a deliciously naive quality. She's a comedienne with that combination of sex appeal and timing that is unrivaled even today. Both Curtis and Lemmon are absolutely impeccable as they bicker, cross-dress, and chase their way into audience's hearts. Their interactions are never less than the stuff of comic gold (watch Lemmon mouth "If those gangsters come in here and kill us, and we're taken to the morgue dressed like this I'll die of embarrassment.") while they play off of one another in such a way that they simultaneously propel the plot's shenanigans and develop their characters.
The movie's lasting impact, however, is owed in great deal to the direction and the Wilder touch is indelible: a work of shocking confidence. He treats the outlandish plot so deftly that the ridiculous somehow appears possible and the shocking turns into laughter. He keeps the momentum of this madcap comedy such that it keeps rolling along, a mirthful romp that knows just when to draw back before crossing the line to the vulgar.
There's an illusion of effortlessness about Some Like It Hot that contributes to its endurance: though the characters are sweating through the madcap circus, Wilder and the top-notch cast keep the proceedings effervescent and breezily paced, giving us a movie with remarkable audacity that transcends all ages for the sake of a universal good time. A peerless classic!