Some Like It Hot (1959)
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Two musicians must disguise themselves as women to escape the clutches of the Chicago mob.
The story
Set in the Prohibition era, the film follows Joe and Jerry, two jazz musicians in Chicago. After witnessing a violent mob hit, the pair flees and decides to hide their identities by disguising themselves as women. They join an all-female band and travel toward Miami by train. While on the journey, they must maintain their feminine personas while navigating the complications of their new identities and the looming threat of the mobsters who are still searching for them.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In Prohibition-era Chicago, jazz musicians Joe and Jerry witness a mob execution and flee, disguising themselves as women named Josephine and Daphne. They join an all-female band, the Society Syncopators, and travel to Miami. On the train, they befriend the vocalist Sugar Kane. In Miami, Joe poses as a wealthy heir to woo Sugar, while Jerry is pursued by a wealthy bachelor, Osgood Fielding III. The situation becomes perilous when the mob discovers their true identities at a local hotel. After a series of frantic escapes and a confrontation with the mob, the men eventually reveal their true identities. The film concludes with a humorous exchange where Jerry, having been forced into a marriage proposal by Osgood, reveals he is a man, to which Osgood simply replies, 'Well, nobody's perfect!'
- First release year
- 1959
- Runtime (minutes)
- 121
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Billy Wilder
- Writers
- Billy Wilder · screenplay; I. A. L. Diamond · screenplay; Robert Thoeren · story; Michael Logan · story
- Cast and characters
- Marilyn Monroe · Sugar; Tony Curtis · Joe; Jack Lemmon · Jerry; George Raft; Pat O'Brien; Joe E. Brown
- Genres
- crime; comedy
- Themes
- identity; gender performance
- Tone and mood
- comedy; farce
- Premise and plot tags
- cross-dressing; mobsters; musical
- Source material / true-story basis
- Fanfare of Love
- Reception
- The film received critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest films ever made, noted for its quick-witted farce and high production quality.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 9.1 · scale: 10 · review count: 73; Metacritic · score: 98 · scale: 100 · review count: 19
- Awards and nominations
- Academy Award · Best Costume Design · win
- Production trivia
- The film was shot in black and white because the actors' makeup looked 'unacceptably grotesque' in color.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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