Some Like It Hot - Special Edition
Tagline: "The movie too HOT for words!"
Length: 127 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR (not rated)
A special edition DVD version of the great 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, was released on May 22, 2001. The film is about two male musicians (Curtis and Lemmon) who pose as women and join an all-girl band that features a sexy singer (Monroe). Some Like It Hot was directed and co-scripted by the legendary Billy Wilder, and it is number 1 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 funniest movies.
The most interesting of the extras on the special edition DVD is a documentary called "Nostalgic Look Back," which is basically an interview of Tony Curtis by film critic Leonard Maltin. The interview takes place in the Formosa Cafe, which, according to Maltin, has been designated a historical landmark. Located on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, the Formosa Cafe was where the actors and crew used to hang out during the shooting of Some Like It Hot at the nearby Samuel Goldwyn Studios.
Curtis, who was in his 30s when Some Like It Hot was shot, was about 75 years old at the time of the interview and seemingly remembered quite clearly events that took place over 40 years earlier. Curtis recalls that when he was first approached in 1957 about being in the movie, he was told his co-stars would be Mitzi Gaynor and Frank Sinatra. But only a week or so later, Wilder told Curtis he was trying to get Marilyn Monroe for the female lead and Jack Lemmon for the other male lead.
Curtis says that Marilyn was emotionally troubled at the time Some Like It Hot started shooting, and she was two or three hours late most days and some days didn’t show up at all. Curtis claims that Wilder thought it would be best to minimize the time that Marilyn spent away from home, so he decided to shoot the Florida hotel scenes at the Hotel del Coronado in the San Diego area so Marilyn could be driven there from home every day. The Hotel del Coronado still looks pretty much the same today as it did when Some Like It Hot was shot there in the late 1950s.
Curtis recalls that he and Jack Lemmon had difficulty in acting like women, and a female impersonator was brought in to coach them. But Curtis seems to have come up with the idea on his own of always pursing his lips whenever he wasn’t talking. Lemmon was able to get his voice to sound reasonably feminine, but Curtis couldn’t make his voice sound quite right, so the voice coming from the character Josephine in the film is apparently that of a male voice actor mixed with Curtis’ voice.
Another extra on the special edition DVD is what it refers to as a featurette that is titled "Memories from the Sweet Sues," which consists of four actresses who portrayed members of the all-girl band in Some Like It Hot sitting around reminiscing. The women were probably in their 20s when the movie was shot and appear to be in their 60s when the featurette was made. The four women recall that all the band members had to have either natural or dyed blonde hair, but they couldn’t be platinum blondes--that shade was reserved for Marilyn.
It’s interesting that the four women say that they were at best only dimly aware of who Jack Lemmon was when they started work on Some Like It Hot. While it’s true that Jack Lemmon was not at the time a household name as were Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, he wasn’t exactly an unknown either: Lemmon had already won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Ensign Pulver in the 1955 comedy Mister Roberts.
One of the four women, Sandra Warner, served as body double for Marilyn Monroe in the publicity photos for Some Like It Hot that were shot after the picture had wrapped. Marilyn, who was then married to playwright Arthur Miller, couldn’t pose for the photos herself because she was pregnant. The pregnancy eventually ended in miscarriage.
Another extra on the special edition DVD consists of trailers for six of Billy Wilder’s films: Avanti! (1972), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Fortune Cookie (1966), Kiss Me Stupid (1964), Irma La Douce (1963), and The Apartment (1960). These are the films that Wilder directed after Some Like It Hot. But mainly Wilder will be remembered for films he directed earlier: Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Big Carnival (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Love in the Afternoon (1957), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Billy Wilder’s position in the pantheon of great directors is a secure one, and Some Like It Hot is one of his greatest films.
Also of Interest: In Memoriam: Jack Lemmon