A Hollywood
remake of the 1935 French movie Fanfare d'Amour, Some Like It Hot is widely regarded as amongst the funniest
and most cherished films in the history of cinema. Written, Produced and
Directed by one of cinema’s finest, Billy Wilder, it stars Tony Curtis and Jack
Lemmon as destitute musicians, eking out a living in prohibition era Chicago. Having
accidentally witnessed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the two men go on the
lamb and hop on a train to Florida.
In order to go unnoticed by the Mob they disguise themselves as women and join
an all female band heading to Miami.
Amongst the band members is Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) who both men (obviously)
fall for.
I’ve wanted to see Some Like It Hot for a long time and having
finally got around to it last night, I can report that I wasn’t disappointed.
Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s script is rich, saucy and hilarious while full of
the sort of bawdy double entendre that would have been impossible to get passed
censors in the years before. In fact, along with the likes of Hitchcock’s Psycho
and Wilder’s own The Apartment, it was just this sort of movie which saw
to the decline and eventually dismemberment of the dreaded Hays/Breen Code that
had constricted Hollywood since the early 1930s.
