Some Like it Hot review

Some Like It Hot Review

Number 105 on the top greatest films of all time is Billy Wilder's 1959 Some Like it Hot

Set in 1929, Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) are two musicians who are down on their luck. Working to pay off their debts, the speakeasy they are playing in is raided by Prohibition Agents. A talent agent finds them work in Illinois and when they go to a garage to borrow a colleague's car, they bear witness to “Spats Columbo” (George Raft) massacring “Toothpick Charlie,” and his men, for betraying the location of the Speakeasy to the cops. To escape detection, Jerry and Joe take a gig in Florida, but the catch is that the band they're playing with is all women, meaning they have to dress up and act like women. Things get more complicated when both men become attracted to Sugar Cane (Marilyn Monroe) the ukulele player of the band.

Some Like it Hot has come to be known as one of the greatest comedies of all time and it was very easy to see why. There were some genuinely moments within the film, which is partially due to Jack Lemmon. Lemmon is a great comic actor and this really shone through, especially in the moments when both Lemmon and Curtis were in drag. Here we got to see how much trouble they were going through to avoid detection from the mob. From trying to walk in heels, to Joe disturbing Jerry's carefully placed brasserie and fake breasts, it was one laugh after the other. It also helped that both actors were incredibly charismatic, which also shone through. Jack Lemmon always ended one of the punchlines to his jokes with a very cheeky smile. Tony Curtis' character Joe was the straight man of the two and the pair bounced well off each other. These qualities also made the characters quite endearing and sympathetic. They're a little goofy, but ultimately good-hearted, which also left them plenty of room to develop. They begin as irresponsible womanisers, but transform into men who begin taking life more seriously.

As for the conflict that the two experienced, I read on IMDB that Billy Wilder wanted the film set in Prohibition to give the characters adequate motivation to dress in drag. Columbo's killing of Toothpick Charlie was a reference to Al Capone's orchestration of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I think the name “Columbo” could be an allusion to Columbo family of New York. At the end of the film, Columbo and his men attend Florida, not because they've tracked down Jerry and Joe, but because of a meeting with the other mob bosses. However, this was a trap, as the bosses ended up killing Columbo for causing too much noise. Although, of course, this isn't how Capone died, but it's no secret that he did generate a lot of unwanted attention with the press. As far as villains go, Columbo was a bit “run of the mill,” but he didn't need to be anymore than this and Raft played him, as he needed to.

If the film falls down anywhere, it would be the more romantic sections. Whilst Jerry and Joe both initially compete for Sugar Cane's affections, Joe eventually comes out on top. And it is the scenes with Joe and Sugar together that, I felt, bogged down the film. I feel that things became overly-sentimental, especially when Sugar was speaking about how all of the men in her life let her down. For me, the main conflict was with Joe and Jerry trying to outwit the mob and the scenes with Sugar distracted from this. Also, Marilyn Monroe's performance didn't help either. From what I read on IMDB, she was a nightmare to work with, from how she would turn up to set hours late or continually fluff her lines, making her quite deserving of the title: “the Blonde Bombshell.” Her performance of Sugar felt quite forced.