SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) ** The most over-rated comedy in the history of film. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon stand around pretending to be girls, Marilyn Monroe pretends to be interested in them, and the Hotel del Coronado pretends that it's in Florida. Lemmon is obviously the better actor, but Curtis more notable in his transvestite suit-strikingly similar to Performance era Mick Jagger. My suspicion is that the critics just really want there to have been a great Marilyn film and found this the most palatable of the bunch. She sings in that freshly washed cotton ball way, in a strategically diaphenous dress that barely goes up to here, but her comedic timing isn't as sharp as in some of her other work, and frankly I always admired her the most for her mind and strength of character (neither of which are evident in any of her films). Billy Wilder stuffs a lot of almost-funny lines into a fast moving plot and has an excellent shot of smoking train wheels, but I found myself more slightly inclined to laugh than actually laughing. The last line, written the night before they finished shooting, is the best and deservedly delivered by gloriously big-mouthed Joe E. Brown (better to drink bourbon with, my dear). Marilyn apparently pissed off all the regulars with her prima donna act, leading Curtis to compare kissing her to kissing Hitler. Fortunately she had better things to do than draw comparisons around kissing him in drag. Ultimately an indictment of the complicity of greed in dominating human character (what could Marilyn have said about this, given room to run?), a stunning achievement given that the characters are all intentionally drawn with tongue firmly in cheek. So maybe the critics are right-a stunning achievement!
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