Classic, Maybe; Dated, Certainly; Dishonest, Basically

Rating: Null/10 (14 April 2002)

I recently watched this movie for the first time as a sort of tribute to the late lamented Billy Wilder, having heard it was his best comedy. I agree there is much to admire in the plotting & pacing of this "madcap farce," and also that one is inclined to forgive inconsistencies such as how Tony Curtis can put on, a few hours later, an immaculate blazer previously plunged into a soapy bathtub (& which was cadged from the luggage of a much shorter, plumper man). BUT I have one large objection: the scene in which Tony Curtis attempts to seduce Marilyn Monroe by telling her that he is naturally not attracted to women, thereby prompting HER to attempt to seduce HIM, really suffers from the datedness of the arch approach to what could be discussed freely today: is he, or does he fear he is, a homosexual? In order to persuade him that he is a sexually "normal" male, she kisses him repeatedly. She does NOT do what any normal woman (in 1929, the supposed time setting, or 1959, the actual setting) would have done: take off some clothes & wait for him to have an erection. Because, you will tell me, of the movie code of the '50s, she has to let her kisses represent a series of more erotic actions. However, we are left unconvinced even by this metaphoric seduction, because we wonder, notably, how could Tony Curtis not respond to the luscious Monroe even in the filming of this scene (where she is lying on top of him), how could "Joe" school himself not to respond to "Sugar," how could even a neurotically frigid male (such as Curtis is pretending to be) not respond for SO long? It's odd that all the scenes involving men pretending to be women work well, but this one supposedly "heterosexual" scene strains credulity on every level.