Cast: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe

Director: Billy Wilder

Screenplay: Billy Wilder

Running time: 2 hrs 7 mins

Genre: Comedy



CRITIQUE:


This 1959 broad farce of cross-dressing, men slipping into women’s upholsteries and heels, shrieks rather liltingly a material that could have been the Wayan brothers’ source document for their grotesquely dreadful White Chicks – so how could Some Like It Hot get away with it and end up as American Film Institute’s Best Comedy of All-Time? The secret is that this picture is calibrated into pitch-perfect panache, flirting with naughtiness but never treads into gross grounds, and winding its comedy into high-level hilarity. Way ahead of its time, this story of two red-blooded Jazz musicians compelled to dress up as women and join an all-girls band after witnessing a Chicago murder, it mixes a heady cocktail of noir, crime film ingredients of guns and gangsters, then sizzles with sparkling wittiness when Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon get into their drag-queen gears. The result is startlingly funny, as they stumble from one situation to another; the sequence in the train is incredibly well-timed, the gags in the hotel are classic setpieces of sophisticated yet at the same time riotous humour. The identities shift from one shade to another, as Curtis pretends to be ‘Shell Oil Jr.’, the wistful, rich nerd who makes Marilyn Monroe’s eyes shimmer and heart glowing with swept romance. Of course, these two lads in their kohls and matte-make up are no match for the 50’s sex goddess Marilyn Monroe, who is exquisitely well-cast as the adorable loony, aptly named Sugar Kowalczyck, having a soft spot for saxophone players, but the lads make it their show. The clicking of heels, the sharpening of their voices, and the swagger in their hips are legendary. The expressions on Jack Lemmon’s face and his banters are forms of classic acting skills.


VERDICT:

It takes a lofty concept to surpass the hilarious, comedic genius of Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. This is just purely, tummy-cramping comedy extraordinaire.



RATING: A+