I will never understand what people see in the character Adam Sandler plays in pretty much every movie, but I’m pretty ok with the incessant typecasting of Steve Carrell. I think the physical humor of “Jackass” is low-brow and brainless, but I think Buster Keaton was a genius. I won’t even acknowledge Monty Python’s existence, but their Canadian contemporary “The Kids in the Hall” can make me laugh til I cry. Understand that when I criticize “Some Like it Hot” it is not that I think it is a poorly made movie, it is simply that it is not my kind of humor in any way, shape or form: which, when you are talking about a comedy, kind of hinders one’s ability to enjoy the film as a whole.
Like all good drag comedies, this film begins with a police shootout. Some are rumrunners posing as undertakers transporting a hearse full of liquor through Prohibition-Era Chicago. In the typical dark Billy Wilder directorial style, the casket inside starts “bleeding” after it is filled with bullets, only to have the lid lifted to reveal bottles of alcohol instead of a corpse- and that’s how we discover the front. In fact the funeral parlor they drive to is a cover- classic 1920’s speakeasy, complete with gambling, drinking and musicians; specifically Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) who just started working there and, when the club is raided, abruptly stop working there.
Attempts to secure other jobs are fruitless so they accept a one-off gig playing a Valentine’s Day dance. Unfortunately they never make it because they end up stumbling into what is heavily implied to be the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which they barely escape with their lives- first by not being shot in the crossfire, then by not being killed by the mobsters for witnessing the act. In the days before a comprehensive witness protection program, their only option is to accept a job in Florida, where an all-female revue happens to be in need of a bassist and sax player; the instruments the two coincidentally play! The precision with which the Massacre scene is filmed could pass as a legitimate gangster movie, meaning that this is likely one of the earliest forays into spoof comedy. So yeah, thanks a lot for “Spaceballs” Billy Wilder… dick.
Apparently it is easy to pass for a woman because with little-to-no time to prepare Joe and Jerry are transformed into Josephine and Daphne; the two ugliest women you ever saw. Despite not even being able to walk right in high heels they fool everyone in their traveling caravan; from the house mother to the ukulele player/singer Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) who Joe winds up falling in love with; at first it appears as though Jerry will be the love interest because he has a little back-and-forth with her in one of the sleeping carts when they first meet, but it doesn’t go much further than this.
“I don't care how rich he is, as long as he has a yacht, his own private railroad car, and his own toothpaste.” (Sugar, “Some Like it Hot”)
Once in Florida things go terribly awry when a millionaire named Osgood (Joe E. Brown) falls in love with Jerry in his Daphne persona. The absurdity reaches a new level when Jerry begins to entertain the notion of marrying Osgood and abruptly divorcing him for a big settlement. To complicate matters even further Joe constantly struggles to find the right time to tell Sugar the truth about him and Jerry so that he can reveal his true feelings for her that he has managed to develop in a remarkably short amount of time. And of course the icing on the cake is that the mobsters from Chicago come to the exact same hotel in Florida where they are staying- so there’s that to deal with too. Despite the fact that Sugar has basically gotten to know Joe under false pretenses, she ignores all of this and professes also being in love with him once he reveals the truth, so they can live happily ever after. Osgood also sticks to his guns in his resolve to be with “Daphne,” so much so that he is hilariously unflinching when he finds out she’s a man at the end of the movie.
In many ways “Some Like it Hot” is essentially the source material for “Tootsie.” Men are forced to disguise themselves as women due to a lack of work in the entertainment field, fall in love with women they work with who see them as confidants and fight off the amorous advances of smitten men, all the while wrestling with their consciences. The female leads are both emotionally vulnerable and insultingly portrayed as women who, while maintaining a profession, are ultimately not that bright; though Jessica Lange acts circles around Marilyn Monroe- which does not appear to be much of a task.
However, there are two fundamental differences between these two films: “Some Like it Hot” takes a much edgier approach with so much sexual innuendo you would think it was made in the era of “Porky’s” or “Stripes.” While I applaud the courage that must have taken in the 1950’s, this approach is used ad nauseum, which makes watching this movie feel more like a 2 hour shift with that boss who sexually harasses all the female employees and less like an enjoyable film watching experience. Meanwhile, “Tootsie” WAS made in the era of “Porky’s” and “Stripes” and handled almost the exact same subject matter much more intelligently (as intelligent as a movie about a man lying to women who trust him can be) and more humanly. Most significantly, there is a transition; an actual development into the female persona.
The second disadvantageous difference in “Some Like it Hot” is the presence of Jack Lemmon. His hammy overacting and overall skeevieness have the same detrimental effect on this film as they did “The Apartment.” I know there are some people who consider Lemmon to be a comedic genius, so I will again refer back to my earlier statement about comedy being subjective, probably more so than any other genre of entertainment.
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