Monroe 100th B-Day Watch/ Pride Watch: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Watched:  06/01/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Third?  Second?

Director:  Billy Wilder

Maybe one of the movies that I pray never gets remade,* Some Like It Hot (1959) is a wild ride of a movie that seems like it absolutely couldn't have happened on screen as a major motion picture in 1959, but... it very famously did.  Whether audiences fully grokked the subversion of the film in '59, or even now, is something I'll need to dig into.

Starring Monroe at the height of her name as a draw, plus a young Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis - it's an oddball period piece about two down-on-their luck musicians who need to flee the mob after witnessing the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, and - knowing there's a job for two women in an all-girl band - go full Bosom Buddies and hop a train to Florida.  

On that train?  Monroe and a full band of young women.  The initial thrill of a sort of clandestine voyeurism as our two young men play a part in the behind-closed-doors world of young women becomes complicated even before they arrive at their destination.  Joe/ Josephine (Curtis) is planning to just keep to himself and run the minute the train arrives, but Gerry/ Daphne (Lemmon) is looking to see what he can get away with, especially with Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Monroe).  

But a conversation turns Joe onto Sugar, and the chance to make some money and have a safe haven for a few weeks keeps them in place at the hotel where the band is featuring.

Sugar is on the hunt for a millionaire, and Joe is ready to oblige, posing as scion of the Shell Oil Co. - by using a Cary Grant impersonation and a nautical themed wardrobe.  Jerry/ Daphne meanwhile is dodging an actual millionaire, Osgood (Joe E. Brown).  

And, of course, our gangster - Spats Colombo (George Raft sending himself up) - and his crew, including a personal fave in Mike Mazurki, happen upon the two in drag at the hotel.  And things get nutty.

Directed by one of the greats, Billy Wilder, the film is both very broad and also a lot daring for the Eisenhower-era.  It definitely plays with expectations and ends with our characters in places we didn't expect.  By this point, we've had the Code in place for 20 years, and when queerness or cross-dressing were shown, it was for a huge laugh provoked by humiliation.  Or, you know, Uncle Milty feeling a little lazy so he put on a dress for the chuckles.  

And one *could* start there with the movie, because it lets us get "oh, there's Jack Lemmon in a dress" over with, let's us join in the "boy hidden among girls" wacky fantasy for a bit before it gets down to how the characters, who have had to become women, find out what things are like on the other side.

SPOILERS

And, of course, even as hints are dropped here and there - Jerry really does fully embrace his identity as a woman by the movie's end.  Early, he chooses his own name, not just a cheap cover.  he's happy to frolic in swimming attire.  He seems to actually fall for Oscar during their evening - who proposes, and Daphne accepts, fully immersed in the illusion.

Daphne is not looking to get out of whatever Osgood is offering, he's saying all the reasons it won't work (to spare Osgood's feelings) even as Daphne remains in character- finally stripping off the wig and saying he's a man.  To which Osgood replies "Well, nobody's perfect".  It's a sort of perfect line and we're left to imagine where this is headed.

Wilder is canny enough to let people see what they want to see - if you think Jerry is getting out if his farcical situation, fair enough.  But it's not my read.

It's a movie solidly about who we really are - people hiding their identities - and only Osgood is on the up and up.  The scene on the yacht with Sugar and Joe both pretending to be upper class is an amazing bit of acting by both Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe.  Both are living out a fantasy, but which one is taking the lead is always in question.

Even Spats is playing his own bosses.

The movie doesn't start at a laugh-a-minute pace in 2026.  I am sure I'm missing jokes and references - I mean some of the casting is even a joke.  And it takes a while to realize that we're going to obey the law of stupid repetition until something like "Type O Blood" is a recurring joke.  

But once the movie is cooking, I was all in.

There's plenty more to discuss, but I'll leave you to just go watch the movie.

This showed up in my algorithm - it's some Some Like It Hot birds for Pride Month.  No, I didn't buy them, but it filled me with cheer.

*but would make a great play - and a quick Google search tells it was a show that started in 2022.  Well, wow.  I miss so much stuff.