With the new 4K restoration reaching UK cinemas next week (see here), Joseph Walsh has reviewed Some Like It Hot for Cine-Vue. (In an otherwise excellent piece, Walsh mistakenly claims that Tony Curtis had an affair with Marilyn during filming, ‘according to Hollywood legend.’ As you’ll find out here, that particular legend happened only in Tony’s imagination!)
“‘It’s the story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop’ is just one of the many sublime, double-edged lines that Marilyn Monroe delivers in Billy Wilder’s gender-bending comedy Some Like It Hot …The note of that line is pitch perfect, the sensual, iconic actress allowing it to drop off her lips with comic finesse, whilst simultaneously echoing the tragedy of her own life.
As well as gender identity the film is rife with sex. Most famously is Monroe, who poured into the iconic (not to mention revealing) white dress, wins ever man’s heart as she sings I Wanna Be Loved By You, the careful lighting just casting enough shadow to hide her modesty. The gift of this movie lays not just in how entertaining it is, nor the memorable one-liners, but in how Wilder balances light and dark, life with death, love with loneliness, men and women. Some Like It Hot is what all great comedies should aspire to be – both sweet and sour.”