Its Hot In Here…

And some like it hot!

This movie has mixed reviews from the trans community… some love it, while some hate it. Me? I’m wishy-washy on it.

When Jack Lemmon Snatched All the Wigs in “Some Like It Hot”
In this 1959 drag race, the actor sashayed away with nearly every scene, setting a new bar for gender-bending comedy.
NewNowNext
By Lester Fabian Brathwaite
April 9, 2020

If dying is easy and comedy’s hard, let these iconic queer film performances teach you a thing or two about schticking a difficult landing.

Hollywood has been going to the same old “man in a dress” well pretty much since the invention of film. There’s apparently no easier, cheaper way to get a laugh than by showing a pair of hairy gams peeking out from a skirt. But the problem with that joke is it’s one-note. How funny can the same gag be after you’ve seen it countless times? Well, if you’re Billy Wilder, it can be the key to just about the funniest film ever.

In 1959, Wilder directed and co-wrote, with frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, the movie Some Like It Hot, a crackling Prohibition-era comedy about two jazz musicians, who, on the run from the mob, take up with an all-female band. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are the two musicians in question, and Marilyn Monroe is the unwitting lead singer who complicates their rouged ruse.

The film is a delight from start to finish thanks to a clever script that keeps everyone on their toes, Wilder’s deft direction that hits every beat with laser-like precision, and the endlessly engaging performances from the three leads, particularly Lemmon.
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Before we go any further, please know that Some Like It Hot requires a sustained suspension of disbelief. And not because Lemmon and Curtis are unconvincing as women. Quite the opposite. When the actors first got done up in their hair, makeup, and costumes, they walked around MGM studios to see if they could pass. After they discovered they could use the ladies’ room to fix their faces without any of the women complaining, they knew they were ready for their close-ups. Still, Wilder decided to shoot the film in black and white because the actors’ makeup gave off a greenish hue on camera.

Even through it is a men-in-a-dress movie it doesn’t go overboard like Milton Berle where he uses “men-in-a-dress” as the gag. Some Like It Hot uses “men-in-a-dress” as part of plot to escape the mob.

And that is where the comedy comes from—the joke isn’t so much about two dudes in dresses, but about the politics of gender. Things get so deliriously confusing with characters going back and forth between “man” and “woman,” and with unlikely romances occurring, that it elevates the whole cross-dressing trope to high art. It’s a bar that few film comedies, with the exception of Tootsie, would reach.

The movie end when with the line… “No, nobody’s perfect.” when Daphne comes out to playboy Osgood Fielding III he tells him that he’s a man to which Osgood reply with that line.

I always wonder if making the movie had any long term effect on Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon? Did they crossdress in secret afterwards, did they have fun around the studio lot?

So what do you think about the movie?