Some Like It Hot

Viewed July 20, on computer from video disc bought in Taiwan (with Chinese subtitles)

I remember watching this movie years ago (in between Road Runner cartoons, I suppose) and not being disturbed in the least by what disturbed me in my recent viewing: the two moments of extreme violence that seem so out of place as to stop the movie in its tracks.  I was surprised to find myself distracted by these scenes; I think that after being exposed to Tarantino's sense of humor, I would be receptive to a couple of shootings in a screwball movie.  Two thoughts then emerge: Wilder may have been light years ahead of Tarantino in mixing gangster violence with screwball comedy, but it could be that Tarantino does it better, with more fluidity.  Or that Wilder has more of a personal problem with depicting violence in any way other than harrowing.  In any case, as it is in Wilder's hands the violence is out of place.  Maybe he and the storywriters were trying to include a bit of everything that was the 20's, a world in which ruthless gangsters, freewheeling flappers and dapper millionaires manically coexisted, but the way he puts them together just doesn't work -- it probably would have been gold in Tarantino's hands.  Wilder tries to infuse comedy in every scene, even the bloody ones, but the tone changes too dramatically, from airheaded sex farce and gaudy tangos in drag to murderously sinister wisecracks punchlined with a noisy hail of bullets.

Those clunking moments aside, the rest of the movie for the most part is a gem, a sparkling comedy

scene after scene there's, the movie really lifts when Monroe enters the picture and the three way courtship begins.

It's never clear why tony curtis gets monroe, it's really arbitrary.  Curtis plays the woman more comfortably in the beginning, a real queen with class.  Lemmon is downright annoying for stretches, but that could be due in part to the grating nature of Billy Wilder’s humor.  You’ve gotta hand it to Billy: always in your face.

The movie's final stages point to a madcap screwball free-for-all chase that the actual finale doesn't deliver, to my disappointment.  The energy that this movie is blessed with should be plugged into a much more manic chase or charade, but instead, they settle for a convenient sneak away followed by a pair of revelations that, in spite of that famous closing exchange, is a cop-out; Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown, no matter how hilarious their final dialogue may be, can't cover the lameness of Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis' resolution. 

Home