Some Like it Hot (No Rating)
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Before he was a Grumpy Old Man, Jack Lemmon was something of a national icon: Mr. Nervous of the Postwar Era. Whether in comedies or dramas, Lemmon twitchingly embodied the strain of keeping up with the accelerating times and the dilemma of not having or being enough. In this classic comedy directed by Billy Wilder in 1959, Lemmon's ordinary Jerry has a pair of big problems: first, not being man enough to stand up to some Chicago gangsters; and second, being too womanly to admit that he's a man. In a still-fascinating example of prescient gender-bending, Lemmon and costar Tony Curtis spend much of the movie in drag, as Jerry and Joe, hiding out from the gangsters, pretend to be Daphne and Josephine in an all-girl band. The fact that the group's lead singer looks like Marilyn Monroe makes this difficult, and the gangsters' reappearance makes for even more comedic emasculation. As a proudly independent director working for the freedom-granting United Artists, Wilder had the privilege of full creative control, including the famous last line in which Joe E. Brown's smitten aristocrat provides a giddy, what-the-hell endorsement of pansexuality. (Phil Anderson)
Review by Phil Anderson
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