Tokyo International Film Festival 2018: Retrospective On SOME LIKE IT HOT

I found out just the other day, as of November 29th, the cinephile and classic movie lover’s paradise FilmStruck, will be no more. This abrupt decision came as a shock because, though I never owned the streaming service, much like TCM, it feels like another kindred spirit. Ours is a joint mission to appreciate the classics and give them wider exposure.

Because in a landscape awash with hours of streaming content available at our fingertips, many times it’s easy for classic films (and foreign ones for that matter) to never see the light of day with mainstream audiences. I won’t go on a diatribe and proclaim it the end of the world, but it really is a terrible shame. Because my love for classic movies runs deep and watching Some Like it Hot for the umpteenth time, but for the first time on the big screen, was another confirmation of this fact. We need these movies. And when I say we need them, what I really mean is that I need them. 

It will be the only film I have seen before out of the entries viewed at Tokyo International Film Festival, and it subsequently was the one I was probably the most excited for. Not simply because I am one of those aforementioned Classic Hollywood aficionados, but we have a history together. All the other films I’m anticipating due to the novelty and the expectation of something unknown awaiting me.

With Some Like it Hot, it’s the exact opposite. There’s exhilaration in visiting something so utterly familiar. I felt like a kid again, and not just because I was literally sitting in the first row craning up to look at the screen (not something I usually do). Like many, I grew up with movies like these.

By now, the likes of Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis are like old friends. While I was never much for Marilyn Monroe mania, I can’t help but admire her in this one because the role highlights every aspect that made her a global sensation. You could not ask for a better cast.

Make It Fun

In the Q.A. preceding the screening, director Motoki Katsuhide relayed the advice passed down to him from Billy Wilder himself. The words were simple and yet if you look at any picture from his illustrious oeuvre, Wilder almost always lives up to the credo: “Make it Fun.” You could not have a more scatterbrained plot if you tried, but the beauty of Some Like it Hot is how it never loses steam; it truly is the epitome of FUN.

Penniless and on the run from mobsters in Depression-era Chicago, two musicians’ last-ditch effort to remain alive is to join an all-girl orchestra. The execution is key. Because it’s not like the premise was completely original, plucked from Fanfare d’amour (1935), and a remake, Fanfaren der Liebe (1951). We have all but forgotten these films, whereas Wilder‘s version is one for the ages, always flying pell-mell toward its conclusion with a zany panache.

Forget for a moment this is the American Film Institute’s #1 rated comedy of all-time. It’s simply a wonderful jaunt from start to finish. One secret to its success is how it brings together many of the most popular genres of yore, from gangsters to screwball comedies and farce. And of course, you have a dash of romance with musical numbers. They’re all present and accounted for, somehow fitting together in this absurd collage.

The two contrasting romances on display are also crucial for the final act to come off without a hitch. Because each is utterly outlandish with Joe (Curtis) putting on the persona of a millionaire on top of his alter ego Josephine in order to romance Sugar (Monroe). Then you have Jerry (Lemmon), aka Daphne, trying to stave off the advances of a giddy playboy (Joe E. Brown), only for it to end in a marriage proposal. What in the world? It’s a ridiculous conceit but it works exquisitely.

Reliving Fond Memories

Some Like it Hot also has another personal significance to me. I didn’t take an exiting poll, but out of the predominantly Japanese audience in attendance, I may have been the only viewer who has walked along the sands of the Hotel del Coronado (aka The Seminole-Ritz) in San Diego.

Though Hollywood is in the habit of creating myths and alternate realities, the Hotel Del Coronado is an aspect of the dream factory still very much alive and well, because it’s actually a real place. Walking on the sand, playing in the surf, reclining in a beach chair outside the club, you can do it all and I remember doing it on multiple occasions.

All told, the screening instigated this near surreal collision of worlds – and a subsequent wave of nostalgia – as I could reminisce about times back in sunny Southern California even all the way across the world in Tokyo, Japan. There is something strangely comforting in the created experience, getting to laugh along with Jack Lemmon – one of my favorite actors – while marveling at the layered precision of the script from director Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.

Because like any great piece of screenwriting, you’re waiting for your favorite bits only to be ambushed by a line that you never recognized the merits of before. There’s very little wasted space and nearly every line is imbued with some form of irony, if not a setup for later punchlines. The payoffs on zingers come again and again, while Wilder weaponizes frenetic music to lift the story’s heartbeat to a fever pitch. There is absolutely no letup and as usual, he gets in the perfect punchline right before the curtain falls. Fittingly, years later his tombstone would be inscribed with those immortal lines, “Nobody’s Perfect.”

As I have already reviewed Some Like it Hot before in a more conventional sense, I was in favor of a looser approach this time around, sharing some stray observations from this lovely big screen viewing of the remastered Criterion edition.

Random Observations

• The informant Toothpick Charlie is constantly being dismissed with the idiom, “Goodbye Charlie.”
• The talent agent Poliakoff clearly says “Salivating Army” instead of “Salvation Army.”
• Jerry says he’s going to get sick after witnessing the St. Valentine’s Massacre and right then we hear a splash and cut to the gasoline spilling on the garage floor.
• Tony Curtis does his worst (best) impression of Cary Grant when playing the millionaire. He also steals his first name from the little boy he tells to scram.
• There are numerous ongoing gags including Type-O Blood, One-legged jockeys, Daphne’s chest continually ripping off, and constant mentions of the Cheboygan Conservatory of Music.
• The sleeper car packed with loads of girls is another take on the Marx Brothers‘ stateroom scene in Night at the Opera (1935).
• Edward G. Robinson, Jr. is cast as a gangster as a nod to his father who made it big in Little Caesar (1931). He is seen flipping a coin in reference to George Raft who did the same thing in his breakout film Scarface (1932).
• Spats Columbo (Raft) also is about to shove a grapefruit in the face of one of his cronies a la James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931).
• Jack Lemmon using his maracas to punctuate his jokes is priceless.
• Joe comes racing into the hotel and plants a big kiss on Sugar while he’s still dressed in drag. It’s yet another hilarious visual.

Favorite Quotes

“You must be quite a girl.” – Mr. Bienstock

“Wanna bet?” – Jerry

 

“There. That’ll put hair on your chest.” – Sugar

“No fair guessing.” – Jerry

 

“Water polo? Isn’t that terribly dangerous?” – Sugar

“I’ll say. I had two ponies drowned under me.” – Junior

 

“A herring? Isn’t it amazing how they get those big fish into those little glass jars?” – Sugar

“They shrink when they’re marinated.” – Junior

 

“I’m a boy. I’m a boy. I wish I were dead. I’m a boy. Boy, oh boy, am I a boy.” – Jerry

Have you seen Some Like it Hot before? Do you consider it one of the best comedies of all time? Why or why not? 

Some Like it Hot was originally released on March, 29th 1959. It was presented at the 2018 Tokyo International Film Festival on October 27th and again on November 2nd.