Cross Dressing and Cross Purposes

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2006)

Hidden identity is a running theme in SOME LIKE IT HOT. Two musicians, Jerry and Joe (Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) witness a brutal Mob hit orchestrated by "Spats" Colombo (George Raft). This is Chicago in 1929. Our two heroes know how the Mob deals with potential witnesses. They respond, in typical screwball comedy fashion, by disguising themselves as women, joining an all-girls band and fleeing to Florida. This doesn't really make sense, but hey, it's screwball comedy. It's not supposed to make sense.
Of course, our two cross-dressing fugitives run into the ultimate real woman: Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe). We know that at least one of them will end up in love with her, just as we know that a showdown with Spats is inevitable. It's the film's other twists and turns that make it unpredictable.
There is one more predictable twist to the movie: a man will fall in love with one of our cross-dresing fugitives. The fall guy is millionaire Osgood Fielding (Joe E. Brown), who delivers the film's ultimate punch line. Naturally, Fielding passes up all of the beautiful women in the band and woos the homeliest gal of the bunch. He introduces himself in a priceless scene in which each punch line sets up the next. Eventually, Fielding tangoes with "Daphne" (Lemmon) while "Josephine" (Curtis) disguises himself as a millionaire and lures Sugar to Fielding's yacht. Brown and Lemmon tango with superb comic timing, even passing a rose back and forth between their teeth. Meanwhile, Curtis and Monroe engage in one of filmdom's most famous love scenes.
Dialogue drives SOME LIKE IT HOT. It's high-octane dialogue, too. The script, by director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond, is a marathon of punch lines. Even the best visual gags usually have a line or two of dialogue to set them up or follow them. Usually, the dialogue comments the film's oddball situations. For instance, when we first see Jerry and Joe in drag, they complain about how hard it is to walk in high heels. Sugar immediately appears, gracefully strutting in heels through some well-timed puffs of steam. The men see her and comment, "It's like a whole other sex!"
Like its main characters, SOME LIKE IT HOT is in disguise. It features gangsters, but it's not a gangster film. It has musical numbers, but it's not a musical. It's really a comedy about sex, and nothing more. It firmly cemented Marilyn Monroe's reputation. She is the benchmark, the ultimate sex symbol against which all others are measured.