Just simply perfect comedy

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2008)

Two musicians--Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon)--accidentally witness a gangland murder set up by Spats Colombo (George Raft). They disguise themselves as women (Joe becomes Josephine and Jerry becomes Daphne) and join an all girls band traveling to Florida. Also in the band is Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) and both the men fall madly in love with her.
Classic comedy. I've seen it at least 10 times and I laugh out loud at it each time. It's fast-moving with a hilarious script. When I first saw this I was afraid there would be gay jokes made at the expense of Curtis and Lemmon. There isn't one! The script beautifully side steps any offensive material. Even when Curtis asks Lemmon, "Why would a guy want to marry another guy" Lemmon says, "Security!" The acting is mostly great. Curtis and Lemmon are just perfect and play off each other very well. Curtis actually looks pretty attractive as a woman! Monroe is just OK. She hated making this movie--she kept flubbing her lines and looks overweight (especially during her big musical number). Raft is pretty lousy--very stone-faced. But he's barely in the movie so it doesn't hurt things. It's filmed in black and white which actually helps--I think Lemmon and Curtis would have looked pretty awful in color as girls. So--a classic comedy with plenty of laughs and a famous last line--"Nobody's perfect". Well worth seeing again and again. I give this a 10.