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Signature Classic |
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Some Like It Hot Introduced by Nick Clooney Sponsored by Friend of Downtown 1959 | Not Rated | Comedy, Crime | d. Billy Wilder Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon 50th Anniversary Screening / AFI Best Comedy |
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| After witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, two down on their luck musicians, played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, flee from the mob by joining an all-girl band. Seems funny enough. But the writer-director Billy Wilder and his frequent partner, I.A.L. Diamond, mined more than laughs from this simple premise, unleashing gender-bending mayhem, and a bursting-at-the-seams Marilyn Monroe on audiences in 1959. Lemmon and Curtis dive into their female personas with such abandon they set the high water mark for all man-in-a-dress comedy roles (perhaps only bested by Bugs Bunny). But the genius of Wilder is that he can’t leave well enough alone, and each scene and entanglement trumps the last as Curtis falls for Monroe (and famously spoofs Cary Grant) and a wigged Lemmon is pursued by a lecherous old millionaire -finally succumbing to his advances with the film's ultimte pronouncement- “Nobody’s Perfect”. Perhaps not, but as film’s go, Some Like It Hot comes awfully close. - Charles Horak | ||