"Cinderella the Second"

Rating: 9/10 (30 May 2010)

What is it about the comedies written and directed by Billy Wilder that made them so endlessly watchable? Well, the short answer is of course that they are bloody funny. For a longer answer, read on First off let's look at screenplays. Some Like it Hot was Wilder's first collaboration IAL Diamond, after years without a consistent partner-in-crime. Neither man is entirely responsible for the fresh brilliance of this picture, but it seems in bouncing ideas they were able to feed off each others' abilities. The general style of comedy is very much Wilder's – the mix of plausible situation and outright farce, the elaborate visual gags derived from Ernst Lubitsch – but it seems likely that Diamond brought in a tighter and more disciplined angle, no doubt adding a joke or two of his own along the way. But what's great about this screenplay (and what makes the picture so continually engaging) is the way it progresses through different types of humour.
So, we open with a setting that is fairly familiar from classic gangster movies – a speakeasy, a Tommy-gun shootout – but with a sprinkling of jokes of a by-the-way nature. We get things like the organ stop being a secret way of opening the speakeasy door – little irreverent twists on hackneyed clichés – and the reason they work so well is because of how nonchalantly they are presented. It's a great way to set the tone and keep the laughs coming without making things too riotous at this early stage. Then, when the cross-dressing antics begin, Wilder and Diamond are able to milk a good half-hour's worth of gags purely out of the awkwardness and potential pitfalls of their situation. But if the entire rest of the movie were simply a load of jokes about blokes in dresses, it would eventually get repetitive. Therefore, when we arrive in Florida the whole thing spirals into a farcical free-for-all, complete with a couple of resident oddballs who make the two leading "ladies" seem normal by comparison.
Speaking of the leads, it really is impossible to imagine anyone other than Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as Josephine and Daphne. Curtis, that rugged and mean-faced man of action, makes a surprisingly good woman, in both looks and mannerisms. Lemmon is great too but there is more of the outrageous comedy drag look about him. It's a pity Curtis couldn't do the voice and had to be dubbed, otherwise I think he would have been in line for an Oscar nomination too. And this is incidentally the role for which Marilyn Monroe won a Golden Globe. Yes, her reputation now may be as a dumb blonde sex object, but in her day it was acknowledged that she could act. And this is just about her best performance, because it's the one part of hers that makes you forget that reputation, and just see the woman.
But it's the supporting players that keep this one chirpy, especially towards the end of the picture where all bets are off and things are allowed to get completely silly. Rubber-faced Joe E. Brown is at the heart of the farce, so perfectly exaggerated in his looks and manner, like a cartoon character made flesh. And when the gangster subplot resurfaces, the authentic but somewhat ordinary George Raft will no longer do as chief baddie – the comedy game has been raised since then. So instead we get Nehemiah Persoff doing a very credible and entertaining Mussolini impersonation. And what about that creepy bellhop? Al Breneman, apparently. Where did they find that kid? He's brilliant! For movie buffs who have become familiar with this and later Billy Wilder comedies, it seems strange to think that before Some Like It Hot he was largely known as a writer and director of grim and cynical dramas. It appeared now though that he had hit upon a formula he felt happy with, and for whatever reason was compelled to put that pessimistic past behind him. His partnership with IAL Diamond was to last for the rest of their respective careers, during which they would make only one non-comedy. However, while they penned a number of a real classics together, they never quite equalled the box of delights that is Some Like It Hot.