SOME LIKE IT HOT

US, 1959, 121 minutes, Black and White.
Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E Brown.
Directed by Billy Wilder

Some Like It Hot has been voted one of the best and funniest comedies of all time. It was the work of Billy Wilder, a veteran of sardonic comedies as a writer with Charles Bracket in the early '40s (Midnight) and as a director of comedies and dramas from the early '40s on. He won Academy Awards for The Lost Weekend and The Apartment. Other films include The Seven-Year? Itch with Marilyn Monroe.

Working with his writer I.A.L. Diamond, Wilder recreates the gangster world of Prohibition in 1929, featuring the St Valentine's Day Massacre and the world of gangsters in Chicago and Miami. He parodies this world but also provides humane comedy through his two central characters, two penniless band musicians who witness the massacre and have to escape Chicago disguised as women in an all-girls band. Tony Curtis is at his best - even doing an impersonation of Cary Grant. Jack Lemmon is excellent and was to appear in a number of Wilder films including The Apartment, Irma La Douce, The Fortune Cookie, Avanti, Buddy Buddy. The film is also memorable for a strong comedy performance with songs by Marilyn Monroe. The supporting cast includes George Raft as a gangster and a hilarious Joe E. Brown as a millionaire. He has one of the most famous last words in a film, "Nobody's perfect" - in reply to Jack Lemmon trying to get out of an engagement by exclaiming that he was a man.

Some Like It Hot has the mark of the best of Hollywood ingredients of acting, screenplay, wit, direction.

1. Why is this considered a classic comedy? What are its successful comedy ingredients: situations, acting, dialogue? Why has it remained so enjoyable over the years?

2. How successful is it as a parody? A parody of gangster films, a parody of the twenties, a parody of comedies themselves, a parody of the Cary Grant style of film, a parody of musicals? How were the parody elements well blended into the overall view so that they did not predominate? How successful was the satire of the film? On the American heritage and its style? On American attitudes and behaviour? On romance etc.? How successful were the humorous sequences: the opening, the massacre, the train, the gangsters' party, the farcical nature of the romance and the disguises? The quality of the dialogue? The witticisms and repartee? The final line?

3. The film was made in black and white. This was to help a proper presentation of Curtis and Lemon in drag. So that it would not be objectionable. How successful was this? How did the black and white atmosphere help the gangster sequences? How did the film keep its various atmospheres: by use of black and white photography, the use of music, the use of farcical situations the use of our expectations for various styles of film?

4. Which details seemed to you the most successful: in Chicago, on the train, in Florida? Why?

5. Why was audience sympathy so strong for Joe and Jerry? What kind of persons were they in themselves? How likable was Joe? How much of a cad? How much of a wolf? how much self-insight did he have? His change from behaviour in Chicago and his con-man-ship via Sugar to a romantic hero in Florida? How intelligent was Jerry? How stupid? How dependent on Joe?

6. How did they relate between themselves? The clash of personalities in Chicago, on the train, in Florida? Why did Jerry always lose Joe? Was this important for the film?

7. How successful was the gangster framework of the film? The initial club and raid? The shooting? The final shooting and chase? How did this give flavour to the rest of the comedy?

8. The train sequence is considered classical also. e.g. the crowded bunk with Josephine. Why was the train sequence so humorous?

9. How did the film utilise the personalities of its stars? Tony Curtis as romantic hero and mimic of Cary Grant? Jack Lemon and his flair for comedy and his role as Josephine - especially in relation to Joe E. Brown? The personality and cult of Marilyn Monroe? Sugar Cane as resembling the character of Marilyn Monroe - pretty, forlorn, ingenuous, a loser?

10. Comment on the satire of the old men in Florida, especially Osgood Fielding. How enjoyable was the satire on romantic millionaires? The tango dance, Joe E. Brown’s romantic attitudes, the yacht, the ending?

11. Did you enjoy the romantic sequences on the yacht - the parody of Cary Grant romance? Sugar Cane's ingenuous helping of the millionaire shell?

12. How successful was the final part of the film with its blend of gangster's murder - the satire in Spats Colombo's death and his final words - the chase sequence, the romance and Sugar's song, the escape and the final humour?