Turn On the Heat

Another classic movie recently bubbled its way up to the top of my queue, Billy Wilder's famous comedy Some Like It Hot. It stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as a pair of struggling musicians in prohibition-era Chicago who, through happenstance, become wanted by the mob. Their solution to go into hiding? Disguise themselves as women and join an all-women band (featuring Marilyn Monroe) that's traveling down to Florida on tour. Naturally.

I joke, because obviously the level of artificiality here is ridiculously high. But when you think about it, it's no more fake and constructed than most other movies of the period (and, you could argue, many movies made today). Still, there is a bit of a hurdle to get over in the opening of this movie, accepting the crazy premise. And then it's really thrown back in your face with regularity, as you have to overlook the fact that somehow, everyone believes that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon could really pass for women.

Skipping past all that, the movie is fairly entertaining at times. There's a good "buddy movie" rapport between the two leads, and Marilyn Monroe makes a fine love interest to spice things up. But the movie is also relentlessly predictable and hits all the beats you expect it to. There are a lot of reasons for that.

First, it's a lightweight comedy, and rightfully aspires only to be that. You don't generally thwart audience expectations in a light-hearted comedy.

Secondly, it's a decades-old movie. Screen writing has become more sophisticated over time, and manages to surprise more often than most classic movies could.

But lastly, and most importantly, tons of later movies went back to, cribbed from, paid homage to, or outright stole from this one. Some Like It Hot defines every major convention of a "cross-dressing comedy" that has appeared in every such movie that's been made since then -- even critically acclaimed ones like Tootsie. To some extent, you could call that a lack of creativity on the part of the new writers; but it's also probably true (at least somewhat) that this really is the best formula for telling such a story, and Billy Wilder found it first.

Still, I found myself appreciating the movie more as a pillar of film history than as a movie unto itself. It made me smile a few times, but never really made me laugh. Much less of comedy than tragedy remains timeless. Delivery changes, pacing changes. Societal standards of what's okay to joke about change. (Some of what's in this movie comes across a little close-minded and cheap; though in its day, it was really an amazingly subversive achievement to get some of this stuff into a major film.)

My personal take on Some Like It Hot is that it's a C+. But if you are a lover of movies and haven't seen it, I'd probably give it my recommendation anyway. It really is a "know your roots" kind of thing for a movie fan, a film that really is "Important," even if I didn't find it as entertaining as I'd have hoped.