Some Like It Hot (1959)
Directed by Billy Wilder
In Prohibition-era Chicago, musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob hit, and flee the state in an all-female band disguised as Josephine and Daphne, but further complications set in.
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What critics compared Some Like It Hot to
The army of writers were clearly using Some Like It Hot as a blueprint, so even when Kevin is a man on the prowl, he's pretending to be someone else.
Two such subplots are lifted from Some Like It Hot.
Nods to everything from Some Like It Hot to Soul Man are here in abundance, but with a tangled and pointless plot that redefines vapidity, they’re the gag writer’s equivalent of sprinkles on a doughnut hole, an empty treat for the cinematic bulimics in the audience.
Using the "Some Like It Hot" boilerplate, an army of writers reheat gender-bending slapstick with middling results.
Essentially a macho version of the Joe E. Brown character in "Some Like It Hot," he plays a swaggering, narcissistic football star who won't take "no" for an answer from blonde Marlon.
The Wayans Brothers' latest endeavor (Keenan is at the helm and all three brothers helped pen the script) borrows judiciously from just about every film that has ever featured cross dressing leading men, from Some Like It Hot all the way down to Tootsie, not to mention a generous nod to Eddie Murphy's classic SNL "white infiltration" skit.
There’s a scene in JACK AND JILL where Jack Sadelstein (Adam Sandler) takes his family to the movies to see “Some Like It Hot.” It’s a nod to the classic cross-dressing comedy in which Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon spend much of the film dressed as women.
Chewing the scenery the way an escaped pit bull chews the mailman's carotid (which, come to think of it, actually makes this a more subtle performance than the one in "88 Minutes"), Pacino falls for the unconventional Jill, resulting in some multi-layered drag shenanigans as Sandler-as-Jack impersonates Sandler-as-Jill, a development foreshadowed by the twins' viewing of "Some Like It Hot."
When it is funny, it's because it is done in a convincing way (think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie), or in a way where the joke is that the supporting characters don't realize how unrealistic it looks (think Some Like It Hot).
Sandler the actor has never looked this apathetic, and the paycheck collecting is so obvious that the movie can’t even manage to sustain its own world, most blisteringly exposed by the ridiculous cameo appearance by cross-dressing classic Some Like it Hot.
It’s generally funniest when a male actor plays a man disguising himself as a woman for an important plot purpose à la Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.
This is a major reason the in-no-way-funny Tootsie and Some Like it Hot are remembered as classics.
Based on Joyce Carol Oats 2000 novel that clocked over 750 pages, Dominik scurries through Monroe’s life in rapid-succession, surprisingly finding enough time to hit the major touchstones: there’s her abusive marriage to Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and then a much healthier though still doomed courtship to Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody); 2022 recreations of scenes from “Some Like It Hot” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” are thrown in; plus the aforementioned appearance of JFK which is a scene that won’t easily be shaken and practically serves as a metaphor for how poorly Monroe was treated.
First are the stylistic choices by Dominik, such as cutting in and out of black and white, impressive recreation of screens from Monroe classics such as “Some Like it Hot” and “Niagara,” and the hard Marilyn POV that pays off – kind of – when she’s with JFK and pumped up on sedatives by a doctor ever slinking around the edges of the set.
Critics will claim (justifiably) that Blonde portrays Monroe as having no agency in this victimised life story, or that the movie fails to give her credit for the comedic panache she demonstrated in hits such as Some Like It Hot (tonally, Blonde is closer to the overheated psychosis of 1952’s Don’t Bother to Knock ).
In chronological succession, Dominik explores several noted film productions ( Don’t Bother to Knock , Niagara , The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot are all attenuated through interesting moments) and significant license is taken when examining her more famous romantic, troubled relationships.
In its impressively lavish and often spot-on visual recreations of the makings of Monroe classics such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like it Hot , we are party to her well-documented increasing turmoil.
Wilder also wrote a horrible monologue for Monroe in Some like it Hot , showing her off as the typical scatter-brained blonde and to underline the point Ana de Armas (as Marilyn) runs around semi-naked for no apparent reason other than titillation.
Its plot is "Some Like It Hot" meets "Victor/Victoria" and it's not half as clever as either, but "Connie and Carla" -- Nia Vardalos' writing-starring follow-up to "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- earns its share of amused grins for campy show tunes and cross-dressing gags.
The parallels with both Some Like It Hot and Victor/Victoria are obvious; Vardalos gleefully refers to both of these (and of course Yentl) while building a predictable farce.
I was able to sit back and enjoy the situation-inspired laughs without getting sidetracked by writer Nia Vardalos' occasionally clumsy script turns, or its derivative nature ("Some Like It Hot", "Tootsie" and every previous male impersonator story according to some critics), or its performers' inclination to milk a gag and exaggerate a nuance.
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Her mistake in "Dick Tracy," I think, is that she frankly reaches back to Marilyn Monroe and tries make Breathless into a Monroe clone, right down to the lighting and costuming in some numbers, which seems inspired by Monroe in " Some Like It Hot ."
There are the requisite film homages and references (“The Fugitive” an obvious go to, “Some Like It Hot” less so) to keep the adults happy, and the parkour-performing wiener dog is just pure fun.
“I’m a cat,” she replies acidly — to which Pops offers the wonderful final line from Some Like It Hot .
"Nobody's perfect," he shrugs, stealing a line from Some Like It Hot.
Watch Some Like It Hot (the actress's very next movie after The Prince and the Showgirl) and listen for the acid in the back of her voice as she says "I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop".
Or as an exasperated Billy Wilder said after “Some Like It Hot,” “Marilyn Monroe was never on time, never knew her lines.
After The Prince and the Showgirl Monroe went on to deliver her finest comedic performance in Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Some Like It Hot (1959) and her finest dramatic performance in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) before dying in 1962 at the age of 36.
Going off the rails in its very first scene, showing its protagonist, Colin Clark (also the author of the memoirs on which the script is based), going to the pictures to see the iconic Marilyn Monroe, My Week with Marilyn's shotgun blast of first impressions includes a toothy, vaguely unpleasant spokesperson with a smile that looks like it hurts, a halfway decent impersonation of the Some Like It Hot legend, and a sense of what 1950s movies looked like that is so disastrously wrong, it adds a dimension of unintentional comedy all its own.
It's been a long time since I first saw Some Like It Hot, and this movie reminded me why audiences all over the world couldn't get enough of her.
The plot — three frat boys are accused of theft, thrown out of their house and forced to pose as women while trying to clear their names — is as old as the great Some Like It Hot and as dull as the lame TV series Bosom Buddies.
Inept rookie director Wally Wolodarsky and bottom-feeder first-time writers Joe Jarvis and Greg Coolidge only condemn the objectification of women as a "Get Out of Jail Free" card after spending most of the picture recycling the tiredest jokes in the campus comedy canon and coupling them with a gag that hasn't been funny since "Some Like It Hot" -- unwilling, ugly, unconvincing drag queens.
Somebody in Hollywood thought taking "Some Like It Hot" and "Animal House," sticking them in a blender and serving in Dixie cups was a good idea.
That was done for just the shock or comedy value (such as Flip Wilson and Milton Berle in their TV shows) or because a certain situation in the script required that of them (as occurred in TV's "Bosom Buddies" and in movies such as "Some Like It Hot," "Tootsie," "Mrs.
In other words, Sorority Boys makes To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar look like Some Like It Hot.
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In Some Like It Hot, this is first evidenced in how the gangster framing narrative is played entirely straight - some winking nods (the mob boss played by George Raft mocks another character for tossing a coin in the air, the quintessentially Raftian gesture; a grapefruit is almost shoved into a goon's face, après The Public Enemy ), but never open, outright parody, and there are more than enough deaths played as deaths, not as slapstick, to assure us of the dramatic stakes.
Some narrative nonsense involving a murder and an F.B.I. mole sets the scene for both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Jackson to don fat suits, fake breasts and plus-size women’s clothes and hide out in a girls performing-arts high school, just as Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon insinuated themselves into an all-girls band in “Some Like It Hot.”
In this cross between Beverly Hills Cop and Some Like it Hot, Turner's in drag again, along with his stroppy hip-hop son, staking out a dormitory at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.
Doubtfire and Dame Edna Everage, not to mention Josephine and Daphne in Some Like It Hot.
In the ongoing roster of cross-dressing comedies, 2000's " Big Momma's House " was no "Some Like It Hot," "Tootsie," or even "Mrs.