Day 126: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Movie #81 – Some Like It Hot (1959) - 120 min, cert PG.

Joe (Tony Curtis) & Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are musicians trying to eke out a living in America during the Prohibition. While trying to borrow a car to get to a gig, they witness a mob execution and only narrowly manage to avoid being killed themselves. To escape the mob they dress up as women and join an all-girl band that is travelling to Florida. Joe falls in love with Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), the singer in the band and has to find a way of wooing her without blowing their cover. In the meantime, Jerry is trying to fend off the advances of an elderly millionaire who won’t take no for an answer.

It may be over 50 years old now, but it still made me laugh out loud on a few occasions, and left me with a big smile on my face, and you can’t ask more of it than that. Curtis & Lemmon are both on top form and play off each other brilliantly. Tony Curtis’ brilliant Cary Grant impression is the highlight of the film for me. That and, of course, Marilyn Monroe’s dress (well I’m only human).

There are numerous stories about how dreadful Monroe was to work with, and about how she was so unable to learn her lines that they had to be stuck around the set for her. But none of that comes across on screen. She appears to have a natural innocence, and it’s easy to see why she was such a sex symbol in her day.

Score – 9/10. An excellent film that’s hard to fault.

Next up is Once Upon a Time in America. I’ve not seen this film before, and I’ve no idea what to expect. I loved The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but I hated Once Upon a Time in the West. I imagine this movie will be somewhere between the two, but that still leaves an awful lot of scope.