USA comedy
1959
bw 121 min.
Director: Billy Wilder
CLV: out-of-print collectible
           2 discs, catalog # CC1286L
Billy Wilder
is to the sound era what Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd were to the silent:
one of the foremost masters of the medium's comic forms. Like them,
his comedies were not only considered the best in their time, they
have continued to be the best over time. Some Like It Hot
demonstrates Wilder at the peak of his form. Marilyn Monroe, who has
remained a universal icon among movie stars longer perhaps than any
other female star, is also at her peak in this film. Marilyn has never
been funnier, more alluring, or more captivating, than she is in this
film. Some Like It Hot also proved to be a milestone in the
careers of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, who spend more than three
quarters of the film in drag. And let us not forget George Raft and
Joe E. Brown, whose work in the early days of the sound era now is
largely forgotten, but who in this film each give one of the memorable
performances of their careers.
Even the most successful of sound
comedies tends to date rather quickly, but Some Like It Hot has
managed to remain today as fresh and lively as it was three decades
ago. Billy Wilder and his writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond, turned to a
German farce of the twenties for their original source material, but
putting a couple of guys in drag has been a familiar comic shtick far
longer than that. Greek and Roman audiences roared at the gag in the
works of playwrights such as Plautus and Terrence. Elizabethan
audiences did the same when Shakespeare continued the tradition, and
music halls and variety shows in England, America, and Europe also
used the gag as a sure-fire way to get a laugh.
What helps Some
Like It Hot rise above its 2600-year-history is the combination of
Wilder and Diamond's wise-cracking dialogue and Marilyn Monroe's
powerful performance as Sugar Kane (nŽe Kawalchick), a singer in
the all-girl orchestra, "Sweet Sue and her Society
Syncopators."
What also helps are Lemmon and Curtis'
finely-controlled performances as two musicians hiding in the band in
order to escape from George Raft and his gang after they have
witnessed a scene based on the infamous Valentine's Day Massacre.
Jack Lemmon graciously consented to a lengthy interview for this
videodisc. His comments on the making of the film, his theories about
comic acting, and his analysis of Billy Wilder's unique powers are
incorporated into the analysis of the film that appears on Analog
Track Two. This analysis focuses on the structure and technique of
Some Like It Hot, provides background on the film's making, and
demonstrates how the film follows classic principles of comedic
construction.
There are two ingredients that are necessary for any
comedy that tells a story: (1) an underlying pain and (2) a three-step
structure of desire, deception, and discovery. The analysis on Audio
Track Two explains why it is that comedy requires deception, and
demonstrates how this principle works in this film.
There is
another kind of pain and deception that underlies Some Like It
Hot: the notion that Marilyn Monroe was nothing more than an early
"T and A" girl who could drive men mad but couldn't act. The sources
of Marilyn's personal pain, both in her personal life and during the
making of the film, could explain why she appealed to women as well as
men. Although Marilyn never received the recognition for her acting
ability that she so desperately desired during her lifetime, she was,
in fact, one of the most effective comedians in film history.
Above
all, it is Billy Wilder's comedic genius that makes this film the
classic that it is today. The acerbic one-liners, the careful
construction of character and situation, the simultaneous
sentimental/cynical use of music and love scenes, the running lines
and gags, and above all the absolute economy that makes everything
contribute to the forward frenetic motion of the film are elements
that make Billy Wilder one of America's model writer/directors of
comedy.
-- HOWARD SUBER
Credits
Producer and
Director: Billy Wilder
Associate Producers: Doane Harrison,
I.A.L. Diamond
Screenplay by: Billy Wilder,
I.A.L. Diamond
Suggested by a story by: R. Thoeren,
M. Logan
Director of Photography: Charles Lang, Jr.,
A.S.C.
Editor: Arthur P. Schmidt, A.C.E.
Art Director: Ted
Haworth
Music: Adolph Deutsch
Songs supervised by: Matty
Malneck
Songs by: A.H. Gibbs, Leo Wood, Herbert Stothart, Bert
Kalmar, Gus Kahn
Miss Monroe's Gowns: Orry-Kelly
Wardrobe: Bert
Henrikson
Transfer
This edition of Some Like It
Hot was transferred from a 35mm composite fine grain protection
master. You will experience video "jitter" on certain frames of the
"Home Movies" (Ch. 26) in the still-frame mode because the scenes were
shot on a wind-up, home movie camera.