FAQ

When two struggling Chicago musicians bass violinist Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and saxophone player Joe (Tony Curtis) accidentally witness the 1929 St Valentine's Day Massacre, they flee the state disguised as women in an all female band on its way to Florida. Now posing as Daphne (Jerry) and Josephine (Joe), they attempt to stay one step ahead of gangster Spats Colombo (George Raft) and his mob while Josephine attempts to woo curvy blonde ukelele player Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe) and Daphne finds himself the object of affection to millionaire Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown).

Some Like it Hot was adapted by director Billy Wilder and comedy writer I.A.L. Diamond from Fanfare of Love, a story by Michael Logan. That story also served as the basis for a German film Fanfaren der Liebe (1951) (1951), so Wilder's film is sometimes seen as a remake.

Apparently, they were able to do exactly as Jerry suggested when they first heard about the gig, that is, borrow clothes from the girls in the chorus and get some secondhand wigs. It's a longstanding Hollywood legend that after Curtis & Lemmon dressed up for the first time as Josephine & Daphne that they tested out their disguises by going into a ladies room and the ploy worked perfectly -- nobody knew they were men.

The title is a reference to "hot" jazz, the type of music that the all-girl band performs. The title figures into the story about halfway through the movie when Junior asks Sugar if she plays "that fast music...jazz?" Sugar replies, "Yeah! Real hot!", to which Junior responds, "Well, I guess some like it hot. I personally prefer classical music."

Jack Lemmon did his own voice as Daphne. Tony Curtis has revealed in various interviews that he couldn't quite put on a female voice. His voice is quite deep and so he kept "slipping in and out" of different vocal tones. So Curtis had his voice dubbed by a professional named Paul Frees. Frees' voice was mixed in with Curtis' attempts at a high voice. However, Curtis did do the "Cary Grant" voice when playing Junior.

Marilyn Monroe sings three songs in Some Like it Hot. They are, in order, Runnin' Wild, I Wanna Be Loved by You, and I'm Through With Love.

That was his way of fooling Sugar into taking the initiative to make out with him on Osgood's yacht. Joe wants to make it with Sugar badly, but since he's already friends with her in disguise as Josephine, he uses his masquerade as the millionaire Junior to pretend to be impotent to gain her sympathy and encourage her to try her best to arouse him.

After being spotted by the mobsters, Joe and Jerry attempt to flee the hotel, but not until Joe (as Junior) fakes a ship-to-shore call to Sugar, informing her that he must leave immediately for South America where he is engaged in a business merger that requires him to marry another woman. Thereafter follows a madcap chase in which they don various disguises, duck under the mobsters banquet table, and finally get carted away by hiding under the gurney bearing Spats's body. Along the way, Joe (as Josephine) hears Sugar singing a sad song about being "Through with Love." He stops to kiss her and effectively lets her know that he is Junior. When they learn that the mobsters have stationed lookouts at every airport, train and bus station, Joe realizes that the only way out of Miami is on Osgood's yacht, so Jerry (as Daphne) phones him with the news that s/he wants to elope immediately. Joe and Jerry hightail it down to the pier where Osgood is waiting in his dinghy. Right behind them, Sugar rides up on a bicycle and hops into Joe's arms, swearing her love for him, even though he isn't Junior. Jerry attempts to feed Osgood a bunch of reasons why they can't marry, e.g., "I'm not a natural blonde...I smoke all the time...I've been living with a saxophone player...I can never have children...," but Osgood counters each excuse with "I don't care." Finally, Jerry pulls off his wig and says, "I'm a man!" Still smiling, Osgood replies, "Well, nobody's perfect."

Two well-received "gender disguise" comedies are Tootsie (1982) (1982), in which an unemployed actor poses as an actress in order to get a role in a soap opera, and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (1993), in which a man, estranged from his wife, poses as a female housekeeper to be near his children. Another comedy, Nuns on the Run (1990) (1990), features two petty criminals trying to escape being killed by "the boss" by posing as nuns in a convent. Two campy movies that feature main characters in drag include The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (1975), in which newlyweds take refuge in a castle inhabited by a transvestite who is holding the annual convention of visitors from the planet Transsexual, and Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Glen or Glenda (1953) (1953), which looks at the stories of two cross-dressers, one a transvestite and the other a man who decides to undergo "the operation". Also worth a look are the highly successful Australian road comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), as well as the similarly-themed American comedy To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). Movies that feature the main character in drag but are not necessarily comedies include Victor/Victoria (1982) (1982), in which a struggling opera singer in 1930s Paris pretends to be a man pretending to be a woman in order to find work, and Yentl (1983) (1983), in which a Jewish girl poses as a boy in order to receive instruction in the Talmud. Two classic B&W movies are Twice Two (1933) (1933) and Charley's Aunt (1941) (1941); the former being a short film starring the classic comedy team of Laurel and Hardy, and the latter in which an Oxford student poses as an aunt from Brazil.