Greatest Film Scenes
and Moments



Some Like It Hot (1959)

 



Written by Tim Dirks

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Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions
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Some Like It Hot (1959)

In Billy Wilder's classic comedy about the Roaring Twenties - the funniest and best-loved comedy of all time:

  • the first shocking glimpse of drag-dressed musicians joining an all-girl band for a three week gig: Jerry/Daphne (Oscar-nominated Jack Lemmon) and saxophone-playing cad Joe/Josephine (Tony Curtis), as they walked toward the Florida-bound train to flee from gangsters led by Spats Colombo (George Raft), after witnessing the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre
  • the first view of the band's ukelele-playing, voluptuous singer, hip-swinging 24 year-old blonde 'Sugar Kane' Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe) walking to the train when she was squirted by a jet of steam - and Jerry remarked: "Look at that! Look how she moves. That's just like Jell-O on springs. She must have some sort of built-in motor, or somethin'. I tell you, it's a whole different sex!"
  • the sequence of Daphne's and Josephine's troubles in adjusting to their drag costumes - Jerry told Joe to watch where he grabbed him after he tore off a phony "breast" in his bra: "Now you've done it! Now you have done it!...You tore off one of my chests...Now you tore the other one"
  • Sugar's sneaking of a drink in the train's Ladies Room, and her hard-luck story of depression and blues to Daphne and Josephine: ("I play the ukulele and I sing too....Well, I don't have much of a voice, but then this isn't much of a band either. I'm only with them because I'm running away....I don't want you to think I'm a drinker. I can stop any time I want to - only I don't want to. Especially when I'm blue....All the girls drink, it's just that I'm the one who gets caught. The story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop")
  • all of Sugar's songs (particularly 'Runnin' Wild') a wiggling, hip-swinging rendition of the song on the train, led by Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee), milquetoast manager Beinstock (Dave Barry) and her Society Syncopaters, an all-girl jazz band
  • Joe's words of advice to Jerry to suppress his male lust: "Steady boy. Just keep telling yourself you're a girl" - Jerry repeated the phrase: "I'm a girl...I'm a girl...I'm a girl"
  • the hilarious wild upper berth train party scene in the close-quarters train bunk when boozy yet soft-hearted singer Sugar Kane, in her seductive black sheer nightgown, cuddled affectionately next to cross-dressed Jerry
  • the sequence of Sugar's second confessional scene about her bad luck with all-male bands and her lovers, usually male saxophone players, to Josephine: "I'm not very bright, I guess...just dumb. If I had any brains, I wouldn't be on this crummy train with this crummy girls' band...I used to sing with male bands but I can't afford it anymore...That's what I'm running away from. I worked with six different ones in the last two years. Oh, brother!...I can't trust myself. I have this thing about saxophone players, especially tenor sax...I don't know what it is, they just curdle me. All they have to do is play eight bars of 'Come to Me, My Melancholy Baby' and my spine turns to custard. I get goose pimply all over and I come to 'em...every time...That's why I joined this band. Safety first. Anything to get away from those bums...You don't know what they're like. You fall for 'em and you really love 'em - you think this is gonna be the biggest thing since the Graf Zeppelin - and the next thing you know, they're borrowing money from you and spending it on other dames and betting on horses...Then one morning you wake up, the guy is gone, the saxophone's gone, all that's left behind is a pair of old socks and a tube of toothpaste, all squeezed out. So you pull yourself together. You go on to the next job, the next saxophone player. It's the same thing all over again. You see what I mean? Not very bright...I can tell you one thing - it's not gonna happen to me again - ever. I'm tired of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop"
  • the scene of the band's arrival at the hotel in Miami - where doddering old millionaires (in identical poses - reading Wall Street Journal newspapers with sunglasses, canes, white panama hats) were in rocking chairs to greet the girls - one of whom was lustful and eccentric old millionaire tycoon Osgood Fielding III's (Joe E. Brown) who exclaimed: "Zow-ee!" who took an immediate interest in Daphne
  • Josephine's impersonation of a Cary Grant-like, impotent Shell Oil heir bachelor named "Junior" on the beach, wearing a naval outfit and thick glasses, and bragging about his yacht to Sugar
  • Sugar's performance of 'I Wanna Be Loved By You' in which she wore a sheer, see-through gown as she performed in the hotel's nightclub lounge - the spotlight tantalizingly teased the viewer with shadows as it moved over her translucent, backless dress with transparent fabric, just cutting off her breasts
  • the slow-burn yacht seduction scene for a midnight snack aboard Fielding's The New Caledonia yacht between Joe and Sugar -- cross cut with Jerry and Osgood dancing the tango all-night long; Joe's ploy was to feign impotence, so that Sugar would do her best to cure him -- Joe: "Oh, it's not that, it's just that I'm, umm, harmless....Well, I don't know how to put it - but I've got this thing about girls...When I'm with a girl, it does absolutely nothing to me"; she accepted the challenge to be the aggressor by making multiple attempts to arouse his libido with kisses: "I may not be Dr. Freud or a Mayo brother, or one of those French upstairs girls, but could I take another crack at it?...You're not giving yourself a chance. Don't fight it. Re-lax...Let's throw another log on the fire"
  • in their hotel room after Jerry's night of liberated tango dancing with Fielding, his joyful squeal: "I'm engaged" - while Joe tried to dissuade him: "You can't marry Osgood!"; Jerry gave his reason for getting hitched - accompanied by shaking maracas: (Joe: "Why would a guy want to marry a guy?" -- Jerry: "Security")
  • the shocking appearance of the Chicago gangsters, led by Spats and his gang, and Jerry's reaction: "Something tells me the omelette is about to hit the fan" - soon followed by a slapstick chase through the hotel
  • the heartbroken Sugar's final song: ' I'm Thru With Love', in which she soulfully and sadly sang the poignant tune on the bandstand in the cabaret, while Joe/Josephine listened and then came up to her and gave her a goodbye kiss as a female - a moment of sexual exposure, to affirm the bond between them; at first believing that he was the millionaire, Sugar opened her eyes, looked up and exclaimed: "Josephine!"
  • the flight of the two mismatched couples from the pier in a getaway boat, when both Joe and Jerry revealed their true identities to Sugar and Osgood Fielding
  • the famous closing punch-line when nothing could diminish millionaire Fielding's love for the cross-dressed Jerry who tactfully attempted to break their engagement, even when he ripped off his wig and admitted: "I'm a man!", to which love-struck Fielding blithely and unflappably replied with the film's memorable last line: "Well, nobody's perfect!"














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