10 / 10
Some Like It Hot is the Billy Wilder-directed comedy that became the most influential American screwball film of its decade and a permanent reference point for cross-dressing comedy. Wilder directed and co-wrote with I.A.L. Diamond. The screenplay drew on the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love and the 1951 German remake Fanfaren der Liebe. Tony Curtis plays Joe, a Chicago jazz saxophonist who witnesses the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. Jack Lemmon plays Jerry, his bassist partner. Marilyn Monroe plays Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, the singer in the all-female band the men join while disguised as women to escape mob retribution. Joe E. Brown plays Osgood Fielding III, the eccentric millionaire who falls for Jerry’s female persona Daphne. George Raft plays Spats Colombo, the mob boss pursuing the witnesses. Pat O’Brien plays Federal Agent Mulligan. The plot follows the two musicians’ flight from Chicago to Miami in disguise and the complications that develop with both Sugar and Osgood.
The film made approximately twenty-five million dollars in initial 1959 release on a two and three-quarter million dollar budget. The commercial performance was exceptional. The film received six Academy Award nominations and won one (Best Costume Design). The American Film Institute named Some Like It Hot the greatest American comedy of all time in its 2000 poll. The film is consistently cited among Billy Wilder’s major works, Marilyn Monroe’s defining performances, and the major American comedies of the twentieth century. Joe E. Brown’s closing line “well, nobody’s perfect” is one of the most-quoted final lines in American cinema.
The Disguise Premise
The film’s premise depends on the audience accepting Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as plausibly female-passing musicians. The premise is structurally fragile. If the audience cannot suspend disbelief about the disguises, the entire film fails. Wilder and Diamond manage the credibility problem through specific staging choices. The other musicians in the band are filmed at distances that obscure the disguise. The two men are shown working at the disguise (the makeup, the wigs, the voices, the postures) as ongoing labor rather than as accomplished fact. The audience is shown the effort, which reads as the source of the comedy rather than as a flaw in the premise.
Jack Lemmon’s commitment to the Daphne character is the film’s central performance. Where Curtis plays Joe playing Josephine as continuous performance discomfort, Lemmon plays Jerry playing Daphne as gradual character displacement. Daphne develops her own personality. Jerry starts to enjoy being Daphne. The third-act sequence in which Jerry tells Joe he is engaged to Osgood (“I’m going to be married”) is one of the great pieces of comedic acting in American cinema. Lemmon plays the moment with complete sincerity. The audience reads the layers (Jerry as Jerry, Jerry as Daphne, Jerry as Daphne who has lost track of which one she is). The Oscar nomination was deserved.
For Writers
A high-concept premise survives audience scrutiny when the script shows the protagonists working at the premise rather than executing it effortlessly. Some Like It Hot’s musicians are constantly struggling with their disguises. The struggle is the comedy. The lesson is that high-concept fiction needs visible effort. Characters who pull off impossible setups without difficulty produce flat scenes. Characters who pull off impossible setups while almost failing constantly produce three-dimensional comedy. Show the effort. The effort is what the reader is watching for.
The Monroe Performance
Marilyn Monroe plays Sugar Kane in one of her most accomplished performances. The character is a band singer whose romantic biography is a chain of musicians who took advantage of her. Sugar drinks. Sugar plays the ukulele. Sugar wants to marry a rich man this time so she can stop being treated badly. The performance commits to Sugar’s specific brand of bruised optimism. Monroe plays the character as a person rather than as the era’s archetype the studio publicity was trying to make her into.
The production difficulties around Monroe’s work have been extensively documented. She arrived late or did not arrive at all on multiple days. Wilder’s recorded remarks about Monroe’s professionalism are well-known. The performance that emerged from the difficult production was nonetheless her most consistently strong dramatic work. The “Running Wild” ukulele sequence on the train, the “I Wanna Be Loved By You” stage performance in Miami, and the closing reunion with Joe all carry the film’s emotional weight. Monroe trusted Wilder’s structure enough to commit to the role’s vulnerability. The work outlasted the production tension that produced it.
For Writers
A character whose specific vulnerability is treated with seriousness within an otherwise comedic structure can carry the work’s emotional weight. Sugar Kane is funny. Sugar Kane is also a person whose life has hurt her. The film acknowledges both. The lesson is that strong comedy does not require characters to be only funny. The comedy lands harder when the characters have stakes that exist outside the comedy. Build people first. The comedy will work because the people are real.
The Closing Line
“Well, nobody’s perfect” is one of the most-cited final lines in American cinema. The line is delivered by Joe E. Brown’s Osgood Fielding III to Jack Lemmon’s Jerry, who has just removed his wig to reveal that the woman Osgood has been planning to marry is actually a man. Osgood’s response refuses to be deterred. The line lands because Brown delivers it with sustained commitment to Osgood’s specific romantic philosophy. The character is not surprised. The character has decided that the love is the love.
The line has been read multiple ways across six decades. Some readings emphasize the comedic absurdity of Osgood’s persistence. Other readings emphasize the line’s accidental progressivism (a 1959 film closing with a man choosing to marry the other man despite knowing). Wilder and Diamond have stated in interviews that the line was a placeholder added during script development. Neither writer expected the line to land as the film’s final word. The audience response in early screenings made clear that the line was the ending. The lesson about endings is that sometimes the best closing line is the one that emerges from the writing process rather than the one that was planned.
For Writers
A closing line that arrives accidentally during composition can outperform a closing line that was planned from the start. Some Like It Hot’s final line was a placeholder. The placeholder became the canonical ending. The lesson is that writing is partly discovery. Some elements work because they were planned. Other elements work because they emerged during the process. Stay alert during composition. Some of the best material in your work will be material you did not know you were going to write until you wrote it. Keep the accidents that perform better than the intentions.
Craft Note
The train berth sequence is the film’s most technically demanding individual passage. Sugar climbs into Jerry’s upper berth wanting comfort. Other female band members hear something and climb in to investigate. The berth fills with women in nightclothes. Jerry, still in his Daphne disguise, has to manage the simultaneous threats of being discovered as a man and being attracted to Sugar inches away from him. Wilder stages the entire sequence in the confined practical berth set with multiple actresses, sustained dialogue, and Lemmon’s specific physical comedy. The sequence runs about six minutes and combines slapstick, sexual tension, identity-disguise comedy, and the gradual approach of the mob investigators on the same train. The berth sequence is what masterclass farce looks like when every element is operating simultaneously and the staging makes the simultaneity work.
The Verdict
10/10. The AFI’s greatest American comedy of all time. Billy Wilder at peak craft. Tony Curtis at his most committed. Jack Lemmon delivering one of the great American comedic performances. Marilyn Monroe in one of her most consistent dramatic-comedic works. The disguise premise, the Lemmon-Brown romantic subplot, the closing line, and the train berth sequence are all permanent contributions to American comedy. Watch it. Then watch Tootsie (1982) for the most accomplished American successor to the same template.
FAQ
Did Tony Curtis really hate the kissing scenes with Monroe?
Curtis is reported to have said the kissing scenes were “like kissing Hitler.” He later walked the quote back. The production friction with Monroe was real. The on-screen chemistry is also real.
How many takes did Monroe really require?
The “where’s the bourbon?” sequence reportedly required between forty and sixty takes. The number has been reported variously across decades. The production schedule was significantly extended by Monroe’s working pace.
Is the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre real?
Yes. The February 14, 1929 killing of seven men associated with George “Bugs” Moran’s gang by Al Capone’s organization is historical. The film’s depiction is stylized but the event is real.
How is the film’s treatment of gender?
For 1959, the film is remarkably nonchalant about the cross-dressing premise. Subsequent decades have read the film variously. Wilder and Diamond have stated they intended only comedy. The film’s resonance has expanded beyond what they intended.
Who is Joe E. Brown?
American comedian and actor whose career began in vaudeville and continued through silent film and early sound. Some Like It Hot was a late-career return to feature work. The Osgood role is his most-remembered.
What about the original French source?
Fanfare of Love (1935) and its German remake Fanfaren der Liebe (1951) provided the cross-dressing premise. Wilder and Diamond expanded significantly. The Wilder version is the canonical text.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Some Like It Hot is required viewing for American comedy and for the Marilyn Monroe filmography.