So. Hot.

Today we’re jumping all the way back to 1959 to the wonderful world of Billy Wilder. It’s a movie that was so formative for comedy, cinema, and Marilyn Monroe’s career that some call it the greatest comedy of all time.

Tyler Clark
June 22, 2023

Good morning Consumers. This is Please Consume, the Film newsletter that loves you more than Ben Affleck loves being from Boston.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Today we’re jumping all the way back to 1959 to the wonderful world of Billy Wilder.

It’s a movie that was so formative for comedy, cinema, and Marilyn Monroe’s career that some call it the greatest comedy of all time.

It’s Some Like It Hot!

How is This a Sex Comedy?

It may feel odd to see a comedy from the 50s that stars Marilyn Monroe and is about prohibition on a list of sex comedies, but here it is. In actuality, Some Like It Hot is an excellent early example of a sex comedy as it developed at the tail end of the screwball comedy era.

Longtime readers of Please Consume may remember that screwball comedies were in fact the sex comedies of their era, but had to be sly with their innuendos due to the decency standard that was imposed.

But by the late 40s and early 50s that standard had begun to lose its power and the screwball dwindled to be replaced by sex.

And because of that, this really feels more like a scandalous screwball imitation than a film of its specific era. It has this blushing premise of two men dressing up in drag and getting to see the entire inner workings of women’s lives.

It’s a slippery concept, but the actors, and the characters, are so committed that it just works.

Sex Symbols

Somehow we have pulled off the amazing feat of going 3 days without mentioning sex symbols during Sex Comedy Week!

We haven’t once mentioned the likes of Heather Graham, Scarlett Johansson, or Shannon Elizabeth…but that ends right now.

We’re talking about the sex symbol of all sex symbols. We are talking about Marilyn!

It’s honestly kind of wild that she’s in this movie by this point. She’s already been in The Seven Year Itch and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, so she’s a big star, but it was well known that she was going through a really difficult time in her life and it affected her relationships, business and personal.

Co-star Tony Curtis even compared kissing Monroe on screen to kissing Hitler (chill out Tony).

Yet despite all that, she’s still so charming and graceful on screen that she burns up ever second of footage she’s in. You go girl!

Still Hot

Some Like It Hot hit the culture really hard being the third highest grossing film of the year and getting nominated for six Academy Awards.

The film had since gone on to become the AFI’s number one comedy on their list of hundred greatest comedies of all time.

Director of the film, Billy Wilder, has also gone on to be considered one of the great directors of his generation and is named alongside of greats like Frank Capra and Howard Hawks. He’s also influenced incredible filmmakers like Cameron Crowe, Steven Soderbergh, and Richard Linklater.

Today’s Scene

Stream It

If you want to watch Some Like it Hot at home, you can find it here.

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