Some Like It Hot

Dir. Billy Wilder

Series - Hollywood Classics

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Billy Wilder's legendary screwball comedy gave Marilyn Monroe one of her best roles, as the lead singer of an all-girl band who becomes the mutual fixation of two cross-dressing musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) on the lam from the mob.

"A cultural landmark that transcends time, country, gender and sexual orientation" (The New York Times), Some Like It Hot pairs Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in a screwball buddy movie, though for much of the film these buddies have bosoms. On the run from the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, struggling musicians Joe (Tony) and Jerry (Jack) hit the rails in elaborate drag, joining an all-girl band headed for Florida. Working overtime to maintain their girlish disguise with exaggerated voices and gestures, the boys both fall hard for the band's ditzy vocalist and ukulele player Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe, stunning and sublimely funny). While Jerry gets sidetracked by the amorous attentions of an aging playboy (Joe E. Brown), skirt-wearing skirt-chaser Joe adopts a second disguise — an impotent millionaire with the voice of Cary Grant — to woo Sugar on the sly. As sassy as its insinuating title, Some Like It Hot is consistently named as one of the greatest comedies of all time and still stands as "one of the enduring treasures of the movies" (Roger Ebert) and "Wilder's most consistently brilliant piece of tight-rope walking" (Gavin Millar).