Blu-ray Review: Bill Wilder’s Some Like It Hot on MGM Home Entertainment

MGM does a highly respectable job transferring Wilder’s lunatic escapade into a sexual hall of mirrors onto Blu-ray.

Some Like It HotThe first time Marilyn Monroe, as the perfectly named Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, walks onto the screen in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot, even the train—with a whistle of steam—can’t resist catcalling her. Heading off to front the Sweet Sues, an all-girl brass band starting a residency as the house band at a posh Florida hotel, Sugar Kane has vowed to land a rich hubby, and the way she retrieves a flask of whiskey from her garter, it’s hard to imagine any man passing up the opportunity. And yet, most men that enter Wilder’s frame are far more interested in Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, dolled-up in drag to secure places (as upright bass player and tenor saxophonist, respectively) in the Sweet Sues and hide out from the gangsters they witnessed mowing down a snitch and his associates in a garage—a recreation of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Even the gangsters, late in the film, openly flirt with Joe and Jerry (Curtis and Lemmon) on an elevator, thinking they’re really women.

Of course, Joe and Jerry are the only men who seem interested in courting Sugar Kane, a fantastical suspension of disbelief that goes hand in hand with the idea that no one can tell that Curtis’s Josephine and Lemmon’s Daphne aren’t hiding something under their Orry-Kelly dresses. At first, the setting is prohibition-era Chicago, where the men play as part of a small jazz band in a speakeasy run out of a funeral parlor by criminal kingpin Spats Colombo (George Raft). A raid puts an end to Joe and Jerry’s paychecks, but it fails to capture Spats, who orders the massacre, as are the two out-of-work musicians. Finding themselves the targets of a statewide hunt by both the cops and the mob, Joe and Jerry powder their noses, jump a train, and join up with the Sweet Sues, only to find themselves pursued even there, this time by horny bellboys and elderly millionaires dealing with their umpteenth divorce.

The brilliant rat-a-tat dialogue is courtesy of Wilder and regular writing partner I.A.L. Diamond, who originally conceived Some Like It Hot as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra and Mitzi Gaynor. Only Curtis remained on throughout the project’s entire gestation, as the unbeknownst romantic lead to Monroe’s romantically challenged showgirl. Indeed, Sugar Kane falls hard for Joe, but only as he takes on the guise of Junior, the preposterously wealthy heir to the Shell Oil fortune, in a bid to get the voluptuous singer in the sack. Cynicism, as usual with Wilder, is pervasive here, and once she hears about Junior’s fortune, Sugar Kane can barely keep her dress on in front of Joe, who, as Junior, mimics Cary Grant in yacht-owner drag.

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Sugar Kane’s willingness to indulge in the perverse proclivities of the rich is more grounded here than Monroe’s Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but then, Some Like It Hot is a far more ambiguous affair than Howard Hawks’s extravagantly ludicrous musical. Up to and including the film’s legendary final line, spoken by the great Joe E. Brown as Jerry’s chief suitor, Wilder’s sex comedy confuses sexual definitions on a regular basis and even obliterates them at times, most noticeably in the case of Lemmon’s fearless comic performance.

At first attempting to suppress himself from taking Sugar for a roll in his bunk, Jerry later comes back from a date with Brown’s Osgood, shaking maracas and walking on air; Joe insists he repeat “I’m a man, I’m a man, I’m a man” as a sort of mantra. Money, more than gender or even attraction, is the ultimate aphrodisiac, and if this deeply cynical belief is slightly upended by the film’s ending, as in Wilder’s The Apartment, the idea is never entirely dispelled.

Panned by most critics upon its release, the film became a box-office sensation, earning six Oscar nominations and, decades later, a place at the top of the AFI’s list of the 100 best American comedies. Some Like It Hot was a triumph over intellectualism, and it came to be worshipped by intellectuals who, after coming to terms with the fact that the film wasn’t co-written by Rudolf Arnheim, noticed the precise auterism at work within it.

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Magnificently paced and terrifically funny at nearly every turn, the film was imbued with an inherent distrust of capitalism and big business that Wilder regularly expressed in an only slightly covert manner. Here, the stiff, quasi-charming man who says that he will one day run Shell Oil is, put simply, a liar and a sneak. It’s a blunt indictment of a popular U.S.-based company but nevertheless a long way from the manic, radically profane cynicism that Wilder deployed in One, Two, Three, wherein Coca-Cola is more or less America itself.

By the end of Some Like It Hot, Sugar Kane is singing “I’m Through with Love,” but it’s a song she’s been singing all along, gossiping with Josephine about all the lousy musicians who’ve romanced her and then bilked her for all that she’s worth. The lead singer of the Sweet Sues doesn’t show up until a solid 30 minutes into the film, but make no mistake, Monroe’s importance in this picture is second only to Wilder’s. A notorious presence on the set, she flubbed lines, arrived late, and tested the saintly patience of her director and co-stars, but on the big screen, she holds us in her gaze, and without a flicker of hesitation.

Monroe even appears to overwhelm Lemmon, whose Jerry takes to repeating, “I’m a girl, I’m a girl, I’m a girl,” as if to divert himself from any frisky business when Sugar Kane cozies up next to him while he’s dressed up as Daphne. Of course, Monroe’s behavior could partially be blamed on the tragic state of her private life; she had grappled with drug problems for months prior to Some Like It Hot’s shoot and suffered a miscarriage toward the end of production. Nevertheless, whatever she put Wilder, Lemmon, Curtis, the crew, and their financial backers through was worth it for what’s on screen: an outrageous, hilarious, and amazingly unpretentious trip through a funhouse of sexual identities.

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Image/Sound

MGM did some impressive work on Some Like It Hot for the 2006 DVD release of the film, and the studio has done further, admirable work for this Blu-ray release. There are still noticeable specs and other debris, but overall, it’s a great 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer with little trace of processing. Clarity will never be perfect, but the image here is quite remarkable; check out the fine detailing on the Orry-Kelly gowns that Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, and Tony Curtis wear. Blacks, grays, and whites look beautiful, and a healthy layer of grain has been retained. As for the sound, there’s been an upgrade from the original mono soundtrack to an outstanding 5.1 DTS soundtrack. Purists will likely throw a hissy fit, but I can’t say that I mind the switch-up, seeing as the DTS soundtrack offers a far more full and engaging sonic landscape. The mix is beautifully balanced between the score, ambience, dialogue, and Marilyn Monroe’s musical numbers (“I’m Through with Love” sounds peerless). Dialogue is crisp and out front, never dipping or overwhelming the rest of the soundtrack. This is a classy job from start to finish.

Extras

Redundancy is the problem here. All of the featurettes, including a 30-minute video interview with Tony Curtis by film critic Leonard Maltin, are very enjoyable and often informative, but they’re cut from the same cloth. The Curtis interview can be seen in large chunks throughout the making-of featurette, and much of the same information he relays shows up in a featurette dealing with the film’s legacy, though the latter features a welcome appearance by filmmaker and Billy Wilder aficionado Curtis Hanson. Sadly, the commentary is all patchwork, made up primarily of commentary by people who have no direct connection to the project (the son of I. A. L. Diamond, for instance) and clips from interviews with Jack Lemmon and Curtis. Also included: a collection of stills and clips as well as a theatrical trailer.

Overall

MGM does a highly respectable job transferring Billy Wilder’s lunatic escapade into a sexual hall of mirrors onto Blu-ray.

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Score: 
 Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown  Director: Billy Wilder  Screenwriter: Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond  Distributor: MGM Home Entertainment  Running Time: 121 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1959  Release Date: May 10, 2011  Buy: Video

Chris Cabin

Chris Cabin co-hosts the popular We Hate Movies podcast.

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