Perhaps someone can explain to me…
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boneman4 — 13 years ago(June 04, 2012 08:28 PM)
To make my point, I was serving as an officer in the USAF when SLIH came out. I was on leave in San Francisco and saw it in a large movie house. The house was filled with men, women and children.From start to finish there was continuous laughter which at times was so loud one had trouble hearing the dialog. Cross dressing then was a novelty existing by and large in a few adult clubs.The fact that a couple of straight men would cross dress to hide in an all female band to avoid being "rubbed out" by a rather
"tongue in cheek" gang of bad guys headed by George Raft(look him up!) was also over the top. Homo-
sexuality was closeted and in fact was still considered by many shrinks to be a disease. Now at the end of
the movie when Joe E. Brown made his historic punch line to Jack Lemmon the entire audience roared with laughter.That was because the society of that time regarded the concept totally implausible and hence
laughable. Now, fast forward a mere 50 years and same sex marriage is not only taken seriously but a major political subject. I make no judgement calls other than to reemphasize that societies change.
P.S.-Marilyn Monroe was a hell of an actress with excellent comic talent, but unfortunately a troubled soul. -
MissSugarKane — 13 years ago(June 08, 2012 08:30 AM)
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. I happen to think this is the greatest comedy ever made in Hollywood. The movie was way ahead of it's time in that if it was released today, it wouldn't look out of place with other modern movies because the jokes are still very funny, the facial expressions are still hilarious, Marilyn's outfits are still beautiful and very risque even for today's standards and the plot is still fresh as it's kind of based on real-life about the St Valentine's Day Massacre. Except the witnesses part obviously. Thoroughly deserved acclaim for the movie to be ranked so high up in my opinion.
Marilyn Monroe: I don't want to be rich. I just want to be wonderful. -
SkiesAreBlue — 13 years ago(January 23, 2013 09:56 PM)
This movie cracks me up every time I watch it. Your observations are spot on boneman4. To me it was high camp and don't forget that Jack Lemon's character was actually contemplating Joe E. Brown's character's offer earlier on but the end punch line was priceless.
BlueSkies -
spaghetti2520 — 12 years ago(November 03, 2013 05:32 PM)
I have tried to watch this movie several times. Every time I DVR it, somethings happens. It gets erased, the channel guide was wrong and it recorded another movie, once it had no sound. I thought I was destined to never see this movie. I sat down tonight and was channel surfing. Saw it just starting. Sat here and watched the entire movie. LOVED it! Tony Curtis is gorgeous and good but Jack Lemmon stole that movie. His performance as Daphne as outstanding!!! Funny, great movie. boneman4 - you said it best!!!
The last line in the movie - Best zinger ever!!! -
MrSuave56 — 11 years ago(March 20, 2015 07:33 PM)
Great points there,boneman4,I also love this film.I can just imagine the reaction when it first came out!It was voted the best comedy ever,and its one of my 3 or 4 favorite comedies.There's Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin that I've seen multiple times that I would say is up there with this classic.
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deadzombie — 13 years ago(June 22, 2012 12:20 PM)
Pretentious beep "humor" I did not get it in 1959 and I don't get today. Some people swear by Billy Wilder as a genius. In 1959 I saw this movie in New York. It was no big deal. Now they are trying to spin this as the greatest comedy ever. total beep 1959 Drag Queens were like a subject never discussed.I always thought Jack Lemmon was overrated. he overacted in every movie. Mr.Roberts. etc. I also never appreciated Tony Curtis. Hey,I can name 100 actors that could have played any of those roles. A typical Billy wilder overdirection. Too many jokes, too many contrived beep scenes. Too many character actors gansters. They used George Raft to make it look like a real gangster movie from the 1930s'. They look like they stole all the 1930 gangster movie scenes and edited them together.This was no big deal in 1959.Billy Wilder got away with a lot of beep in his movies. Mostly he used Marilyn Monroe as a prop. She couldn't act,sing,or dance. you want to spin this movie,Jack Lemmon, go right ahead,but we all know it was a cheap comedy.Shooting this in Black and white did not work.
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canuckteach — 12 years ago(July 09, 2013 06:03 PM)
deadzone - Monroe had a sweet, but deep singing voice - and she hit her notes.. so where does this 'couldn't sing or act' stuff come from? She also attended the elite Strasberg Acting studio. That's the
Julliard
equivalent in the acting business. I don't know that dancing was a big requirement in this film (or her others) - she didn't do any Eleanor Powell-type roles. And if you think Lemmon always overacted, you are in a whiny, critical, cynical minority.
Maybe you're just a troll- you don't name any actors that you think don't overact, or aren't used as 'props'.
canuckteach
- you don't name any actors that you think don't overact, or aren't used as 'props'.
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politicon2003 — 13 years ago(July 01, 2012 02:21 AM)
The best movie comedy of all time seen during my 70 plus years was Danny Kayes,The Court Jester (1955). Don't watch it if your belly hurts when you laugh or the neighbours downstairs are apt to complain about the racket you make when rolling on the floor and the ceiling leak caused by your flooding pool of happy tears. Nonetheless, Some Like It Hot should be well up in that list with Trading Places.
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MissSugarKane — 13 years ago(July 06, 2012 02:51 PM)
Pretentious beep "humor" I did not get it in 1959 and I don't get today. Some people swear by Billy Wilder as a genius. In 1959 I saw this movie in New York. It was no big deal. Now they are trying to spin this as the greatest comedy ever. total beep 1959 Drag Queens were like a subject never discussed.I always thought Jack Lemmon was overrated. he overacted in every movie. Mr.Roberts. etc. I also never appreciated Tony Curtis. Hey,I can name 100 actors that could have played any of those roles. A typical Billy wilder overdirection. Too many jokes, too many contrived beep scenes. Too many character actors gansters. They used George Raft to make it look like a real gangster movie from the 1930s'. They look like they stole all the 1930 gangster movie scenes and edited them together.This was no big deal in 1959.Billy Wilder got away with a lot of beep in his movies. Mostly he used Marilyn Monroe as a prop. She couldn't act,sing,or dance. you want to spin this movie,Jack Lemmon, go right ahead,but we all know it was a cheap comedy.Shooting this in Black and white did not work.
Chin up.
Marilyn Monroe: I don't want to be rich. I just want to be wonderful. -
norberte — 13 years ago(August 09, 2012 05:40 AM)
We are all different and all have different opinions and taste. To say to someone who dosent' like a movie you think is a masterpiece shows snobbery at best. I didn't like it in 1959 and I don't like it now. However I know I,m in a small minority but thats ok, as we all find ourselves in that position at times when we don't like something everyone else loves and at times just the opposite. And my other exception is " Tom Jones " didn't like it
Nobo1 -
Beau_Buffet — 10 years ago(March 29, 2016 09:42 AM)
Just want to say that Zelig is my favorite Woody Allen movie (big fan of him in general), and Some Like It Hot is probably my favorite American comedy of all-time.
There is nothing incompatible in loving these two particular movies. -
dmayo-911-597432 — 13 years ago(January 09, 2013 10:45 PM)
Hi, salesgab. We met over on the Citizen Kane page, and once again I think your personal response to an acclaimed film is sound. I'll tell the story of my own exposure to this movie, since it's both an old story and a new one.
I saw Some Like It Hot for the first time yesterday. However, I'm old enough to remember when it came out and how other kids talked about it in a gleefully knowing way, as if celebrating their initiation in the rites of grown-up entertainment. That talk, combined with the publicity stills of two men dressed as women cavorting with Marilyn Monroe, gave me a foreboding of ennui when I hadn't even studied French. I was and am indifferent to Marilyn Monroe, although I'm a male with standard wiring. I felt the cross-dressing gag to be a spent force as soon as I had seen the stills. And so I passed up that movie all these years.
Then I noticed that Halliwell's Film Guide gives SLIH four stars and refers to its qualities as "rarely duplicated and never equalled." Halliwell's is indeed my guide, so when the movie turned up on TV I watched it. I found it beautifully photographed. Otherwise, I kept waiting for the engine to turn over and finally realized that my old foreboding had been right. SLIH is a one-gag movie. What is essential to its appeal is that the gag is a naughty one; it paves the way for lots of nudge-nudge jokes about sex. Yes, "naughty" is a straitlaced word, but that's just the point. SLIH split the seams of a notoriously straitlaced decade in American history. It's far from being grown-up entertainment, but it was growing-up entertainment for moviegoers of the time and for Hollywood. It may be more than that to many people, just not to me.
Why does Some Like It Hot leave some of us cold? It might be interesting to pursue that question through comparisons with two movies that I, for one, like very much. The first is Preston Sturges's The Palm Beach Story (1942). I've chosen this example because it has several things in common with SLIH. Its mainstay is a wild train-to-Florida sequence. It gives us the funny millionaire character in two parts: an old one with a glittering eye for legs, and a young one with matrimonial ideas and a yacht. It works a running gag about sexual response. It even ends (mini-spoiler alert) with a madcap pairing of characters on the principle that any mate will do just not so madcap as in SLIH. The Palm Beach Story does make me laugh, again and again. If Sturges had made Some Like It Hot, I'm sure I'd have laughed at that the way others do; only then the others might not have laughed.
I'll also suggest a very different kind of comparison. To see another way of keeping the subject of sex in play throughout a movie, I recommend a non-comedy, The Haunting (the 1963 original). Apart from one brief, obliquely pointed dialogue, this film has nothing to do with sex on the surface. The surface, however, is a carefully-drawn map of underlying sexual tensions. Yes, that's another form of nudge-nudge entertainment. It's just a matter of finding a form that you enjoy. So it is with The Palm Beach Story.
Having reached the stage where I'm too opinionated to question my own response to a movie as you admirably do, salesgab, I maintain that if I give a movie one or two chances to impress me and it doesn't, then it was made for other people. I gave Some Like It Hot a chance yesterday. I'll give it a second one. But please, everybody, let's not impugn each other's wits for "getting" different things. -
onleft23 — 12 years ago(September 01, 2013 02:12 PM)
dmayo-911 -
Can't agree w/ your take but respect its well written and reasoned opinion.
& I will give The PB Story & Haunting a watch to see where and or why my response
to SLIH seems so 180 degrees different from yours.
You see watching this movie for the first time yesterday evening, I found myself
caught up in laughter all the way thru. And more than once still laughing at one
line and then getting a new laugh from the next. Not "ROTFL" type laughs but
authentic ones just the same.
The script was one of the most clever I've ever heard. For sure though I'd "bought in" the thing
beforehand - I mean Wilder, Lemmon, Curtis, & Marilyn Monroe -
I guess kinda like a Bill Cosby monologue, the guy could read the phone book and
still kill b/c the audience is so "with" the performer.
But for me - and maybe because of a pre-disposition - SLIH lived up to its rep - every bit so.
Thanks again for your perspective I took something from it if not persuaded by it. -
dmayo-911-597432 — 12 years ago(September 01, 2013 10:16 PM)
onleft23
We don't want this to become an endless loop of acknowledgements, but do let me say thank you for your friendly reply. It's refreshing to see a difference of opinion expressed in that spirit.
I'll have another look at SLIH one of these days. -
Veltaine — 12 years ago(April 05, 2013 06:02 AM)
Reasons why this is the greatest comedy ever made?
I.A.L Diamond's script, even the most insignificant scenes in the film are loaded with witty lines and satire.
The acting, Monroe had huge talent as a comedic actress. Jack Lemmon had excellent timing and his facial expressions were hilarious.
The outrageousness of having a tough guy from the Bronx playing a prudish, high-strung lady.
The sexual tension between the three main characters. Bearing in mind this was just before the 'sexual revolution' of the sixties.
The pure outlandishness of the plot, interwoven with the viewer's thinking; well, what the hell else could they have done in that situation?
Possibly the best last line of any film ever made.
There are more reasons, of course, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
"My car is outside."
"Naturally."