# Some Like It Hot

Some Like It Hot is a 1959 film about two musicians who, after accidentally witnessing the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, disguise themselves as women and flee south in an all-female band. In 2000, the American Film Institute listed Some Like It Hot as the greatest American comedy film of all time.
    Directed by Billy Wilder. Written by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan

## Sugar Kane Kowalczyk

* I'm not very bright, I guess...just dumb. If I had any brains, I wouldn't be on this crummy train with this crummy girls' band...I used to sing with male bands but I can't afford it anymore...That's what I'm running away from. I worked with six different ones in the last two years. Oh, brother!...I can't trust myself. I have this thing about saxophone players, especially tenor sax...I don't know what it is, they just curdle me. All they have to do is play eight bars of 'Come to Me, My Melancholy Baby' and my spine turns to custard. I get goose pimply all over and I come to 'em...every time... That's why I joined this band. Safety first. Anything to get away from those bums...You don't know what they're like. You fall for 'em and you really love 'em - you think this is gonna be the biggest thing since the Graf Zeppelin - and the next thing you know, they're borrowing money from you and spending it on other dames and betting on horses...Then one morning you wake up, the guy is gone, the saxophone's gone, all that's left behind is a pair of old socks and a tube of toothpaste, all squeezed out. So you pull yourself together. You go on to the next job, the next saxophone player. It's the same thing all over again. You see what I mean? Not very bright...I can tell you one thing - it's not gonna happen to me again - ever. I'm tired of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.
* Real diamonds! They must be worth their weight in gold!

## Dialogue

    Jerry: [breaks down into tears] Oh, why did I ever let you talk me into this?
    Joe: Why are you even speaking to me about it?
    Jerry: I just don't have a good feeling about this.
    Joe: Oh, come on! What are you worried about? This job is going to last a long time.
    Jerry: Well, suppose it doesn't?
    Joe: Jerry, boy, why do you have to paint everything so black? Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn!
    Jerry: [Jerry notices the badge of an undercover agent at a nearby table] Joe...?
    Joe: Suppose Lake Michigan overflows.
    Jerry: Well, don't look now, but the whole town is underwater!
    Sig Poliakoff: The instruments are right but you're not...
    Jerry: Wait a minute. What's wrong with us?
    Sig Poliakoff: You're the wrong shape. Goodbye!
    Joe: What are you looking for — hunchbacks or something?
    Sig Poliakoff: Oh, it's not the backs that worry me...
    Jerry: Well, then, what is it then?
    Joe: Yeah! What kind of a band is this, anyway?
    Sig Poliakoff: You gotta be under twenty-five...
    Jerry: Oh, we could pass for that!
    Sig Poliakoff: ..you gotta be blonde...
    Jerry: We could dye our hair!
    Sig Poliakoff: ...and you gotta be girls.
    Jerry: We could—!
    Joe: No, we couldn't!
    Jerry: [in high heels] How do they walk in these things, huh? How do they keep their balance?
    Joe: It must be the way the weight is distributed. Now, come on.
    Jerry: It's so drafty. They must be catching cold all the time, huh?
    Joe: Will you quit stalling? We're gonna miss the train.
    Jerry: I feel naked. I feel like everybody's staring at me!
    Joe: With those legs, are you crazy? Now, come on.
    [They see Sugar Kane]
    Jerry: Look at that! Look how she moves. That's just like Jell-O on springs. She must have some sort of built-in motors. I tell you, it's a whole different sex!
    Joe: What are you afraid of? Nobody's asking you to have a baby.
    Beinstock: Saxophone, Bass. Am I glad to see you girls. You saved our lives.
    Jerry/Daphne: Likewise, I'm sure.
    Sue: Where did you girls play before?
    Jerry/Daphne: Here, there, and around.
    Joe/Josephine: We spent three years at the Sheboygan Conservatory of Music.
    Jerry: Now you've done it! Now you have done it!
    Joe: Done what?
    Jerry: You tore off one of my chests!
    Jerry: [about the women] How about that talent, huh? Like falling into a tub of butter.
    Joe: Watch it, Daphne.
    Jerry: When I was a kid, Joe, I used to have a dream. I was locked up overnight in a pastry shop and there was goodies all around. There was jellyrolls and mocha eclairs and sponge cake, and Boston creme pie and cherry tarts -
    Joe: Don't. Listen to me. No butter, no pastry. We're on a diet!
    Joe/Josephine: Men! Oh, you don't have to worry about that.
    Jerry/Daphne: We wouldn't be caught dead with men. Rough, hairy beasts! Eight hands. And they...they all just want one thing from a girl.
    Beinstock: [indignantly] I beg your pardon, Miss!
    Sugar: I want to thank you for covering up for me. You're a real pal.
    Jerry/Daphne: Oh, it's nothing. I-uh, I just thought that us girls should stick together.
    Sugar: If it wasn't for you, they would have kicked me off the train. I'd be out in the middle of nowhere sitting on my ukelele.
    Jerry/Daphne: Oh, it's freezing outside. When I think about you and your poor ukelele!
    Sugar: If there's ever anything I can do for you?
    Jerry/Daphne: [aside] I can think of a million things. [She climbs into Daphne's berth] That's one of 'em.
    Jerry: Dirty old man...I just got pinched in the elevator.
    Joe: Now you know how the other half lives.
    Jerry: Look at that. I'm not even pretty.
    Joe: They don't care. Just so long as you're wearing a skirt. It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
    Jerry: Really. Well I'm sick of being the flag. I want to be a bull again.
    Joe: So you got pinched in the elevator. So what! Would you rather be picking lead out of your navel?...What's the beef? We're sitting pretty. Look, we've got room and board, we're getting paid every week...
    Jerry: I know why you want to stay here. You're after Sugar.
    Joe: Me after Sugar?
    Jerry: I saw you, the both of you on that bus, all lovey-dovey and whispering and giggling and borrowing each other's lipstick. I saw ya.
    Joe: What are you talking about?...We're just like sisters.
    Jerry: Well I'm your fairy godmother. And I'm gonna keep an eye on you.
    Jerry: Have I got things to tell you!
    Joe: What happened?
    Jerry: I'm engaged.
    Joe: Congratulations. Who's the lucky girl?
    Jerry: I am!
    Joe: WHAT?!
    Jerry: Osgood proposed to me! We're planning a June wedding.
    Joe: What are you talking about? You can't marry Osgood.
    Jerry: Why, you think he's too old for me?
    Joe: Jerry, you can't be serious.
    Jerry: Why not? He keeps marrying girls all the time.
    Joe: But, you're not a girl! You're a guy, and, why would a guy wanna marry a guy?
    Jerry: For security! Look, I know there's a problem, Joe.
    Joe: I'll say there is.
    Jerry: His mother - we need her approval, but I'm not worried because I don't smoke.
    Joe: Jerry. There's another problem, like what are you gonna do on your honeymoon?
    Jerry: We've been discussing that. He wants to go to the Riviera but I'm kinda leaning toward Niagra Falls.
    Joe: My God.
    Jerry: I don't expect it to last Joe. I'll tell him when the time's right.
    Joe: Like when?
    Jerry: Like right after the ceremony. Then we get a quick annulment, he makes a nice little settlement on me and I keep getting those alimony checks every month.
    Joe: Jerry listen to me there are laws, conventions. It's just not been done.
    Jerry: Joe this may be my last chance to marry a millionaire.
    Joe: Oh, Jerry — Jerry, will you take my advice? Forget about the whole thing, will ya? Just keep telling yourself: you're a boy, you're a boy.
    Jerry: I'm a boy.
    Joe: That's the boy.
    Jerry: I'm a boy. I'm a boy. I wish I were dead. I'm a boy. Boy, oh boy, am I a boy. Now, what am I gonna do about my engagement present?
    Joe: What engagement present?
    Jerry: Osgood gave me a bracelet.
    Joe: [examining it] Hey, these are real diamonds!
    Jerry: Of course they're real! What do you think? My fiance is a bum?
    Jerry: I feel like such a tramp, taking jewelry from a man under false pretenses.
    Joe: Get it while you're young. You'd better fix your lips. You wanna look good for Osgood, don't ya?
    Jerry: It's just gonna break his heart when he finds out I can't marry him.
    Joe: So, it's gonna break Sugar's heart when she finds that I'm not a millionaire. That's life. You can't make an omelette without breaking an egg.
    Jerry: What are you giving me with the omelette?
    Joe: Nag, nag, nag. Look, we've got a yacht, we've got a bracelet. You've got Osgood, I've got Sugar. We'll be really cookin'!
    Joe: You don't want me, Sugar. I'm a liar and a phony. A saxophone player. One of those no-goodniks you keep running away from.
    Sugar: I know, every time.
    Joe: Sugar, do yourself a favor. Go back to where the millionaires are, the sweet end of the lollipop, not the cole slaw in the face, the old socks and the squeezed-out tube of toothpaste.
    Sugar: That's right. Pour it on. Talk me out of it. [She grabs him to kiss him]
    Osgood: I called Mama. She was so happy she cried! She wants you to have her wedding gown. It's white lace.
    Daphne: Yeah, Osgood. I can't get married in your mother's dress. Ha ha. That-she and I, we are not built the same way.
    Osgood: We can have it altered.
    Daphne: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.
    Osgood: Why not?
    Daphne: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.
    Osgood: Doesn't matter.
    Daphne: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
    Osgood: I don't care.
    Daphne: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.
    Osgood: I forgive you.
    Daphne: [Tragically] I can never have children!
    Osgood: We can adopt some.
    Daphne/Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood! [Whips off his wig, exasperated, and changes to a manly voice] Uhhh, I'm a man!
    Osgood: [Looks at him then turns back, unperturbed] Well, nobody's perfect!
   * Note: the bolded line is ranked #48 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

## Taglines

* The movie too HOT for words!
* Marilyn Monroe and her bosom companions

## Cast

* Marilyn Monroe — Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk
* Tony Curtis — Joe/"Josephine"/"Shell Oil Junior"
* Jack Lemmon — Jerry (Gerald)/"Daphne"
* George Raft — "Spats" Colombo
* Pat O'Brien — Detective Mulligan
* Joe E. Brown — Osgood Fielding III
* Nehemiah Persoff — "Little Bonaparte"
* Joan Shawlee — Sweet Sue
* Dave Barry — Mister Beinstock
* Billy Gray — Sig Poliakoff
* Barbara Drew — Nellie Weinmeyer
* George E. Stone — "Toothpick" Charlie
* Mike Mazurki — Spats's henchman
* Harry Wilson — Spats's henchman
* Edward G. Robinson Jr. — Johnny Paradise
* Beverly Wills — Dolores

## External links

* Some Like It Hot quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Some Like It Hot at Filmsite.org