Marilyn From The 22nd Row

From what I’ve read, the consensus is this: Some Like It Hot is undeniably a magnificent movie, perfect, absolutely the best comedy ever made in Hollywood, according to the American Film Institute. It moves at a frenetic pace and is not afflicted with even one slow or dull moment. The dialogue is well written and delivered; the frequency of jokes and double entendres match the movie’s pace; the sets are realistic and well decorated; the music fits perfectly within the end of the Roaring Twenties time frame while the black and white cinematography adds to the realism of the gangster movie genre, which Some Like It Hot satirizes. OK. I’ll go along with most of that. I draw the line at AFI’s contention that Some Like It Hot is the best, meaning the funniest, movie ever made in Hollywood. Certainly Mr. Wilder’s farce, in which gender norms become pretzels, is one of the best, one of the funniest comedies ever made in Hollywood. Even fifty-eight years has not dulled its luster. But there are several comedies that I would rank above Some Like It Hot. Pardon me if I do not reveal which comedies: that is not the point of this review.

The movie garnered favorable reviews in 1959. Most reviewers complained about its unusual length, one minute over two hours, unusual for a comedy; and several reviewers noted that Mr. Wilder and Mr. Diamond, the co-screenwriter, milked the old man-dresses-as-woman joke for all it was worth. As Variety noted in its review of February the 24th in 1959: Pictures like this, with a sense of humor that is as broad as it can be sophisticated, come along only infrequently … Even so, the film has its faults. It’s too long, for one, being a small joke milked like a dairy … Maybe, but it’s how they milk the small joke that’s interesting.

Using parallel relationships, or goofy courtships if you prefer, involving deception and bogus identities, Billy and I.A.L. create a tangled but humorous world in which men court and propose to men posing as women, and the men posing as women accept! In this convoluted world, a woman offers sexual healing to a man claiming he is afflicted with erectile dysfunction who is posing as a woman posing as a man. The practically experienced sexual healer is simultaneously passing herself off as a wealthy and sophisticated collegian to connubially ensnare the sexually impaired impostor posing also as a millionaire. But then, all he really and only wants is a roll-in-the-hay, initially, that is. It’s all twisted, turned around, upside down and funny. The preposterous, funny nature of the entanglements apparently rendered the sophisticated vulgarity of the movie’s overt sexuality acceptable to the late fifties audiences. As Variety also noted in its 1959 review: … one or two scenes skirt the limits of good taste. But who’ll care? Correct: few cared in 1959 and even fewer will care now, because in Some Like It Hot, nothing is exactly as it seems. So much so, in fact, that the very beginning of the movie functions as the bait leading to the switch.

I’m not a Tony Curtis fan, primarily because of the many odious and dubious things he said about Marilyn during the years following her tragic death. But since Tony himself recently joined the multitude of the nonliving, I’m not going to turn this review into a bash Tony Curtis session, as I have done in the past.

Leonard Maltin interviewed Tony about making Some Like It Hot for its DVD re-release several years ago. Tony was charming and funny. He maintained in that interview that he never said kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler. Of course, we know he lied because Paula Strasberg testified that she overheard him say it; but I’ve often preached that a considerable amount of the myth regarding Marilyn’s on-set difficulties should never be spoken, should be forgotten, primarily because that mythology is now insignificant. What did or did not happen on those sets fifty-eight years ago is now meaningless. What really matters are Marilyn’s movies and her amazing performances. Maybe the same applies to Tony Curtis. Besides, it’s simply gauche to talk ill of the dead.

And I will give the Devil his due: Tony Curtis delivers a fine performance as the triple personality Joe, Josephine and Junior. His imitation of Cary Grant is nearly flawless, if not slightly eerie. Tony credited himself with the idea of imitating Cary and I have no real reason to doubt him. If that was his idea, it must have come to him during a moment of sublime inspiration. He claims to have used his stern and reserved mother as inspiration for Josephine. No word regarding who Tony used as a template for Joe. Maybe he was just being himself. Apparently Tony could not maintain Josephine’s high pitched timber for an entire take, so her voice contains over dubs by Paul Frees.

Tony claimed he was the first actor signed to a Some Like It Hot contract. Originally, his cohort was going to be Frank Sinatra and for the part of Sugar Kane, Wilder anticipated Mitzi Gaynor. Later, Wilder altered the cast to include Jack Lemmon and Marilyn after Sinatra withdrew his name from consideration and Marilyn expressed an interest in the movie.

Like Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon delivers the personalities of Jerry and Daphne adroitly and vigorously. Some reviewers accuse Jack of overacting, but that seems unusually harsh: Jack had a tendency in all of his movies to accentuate the physicality of the characters he portrayed. This tendency works well in a silly-nonsensical-comedy-farce and particularly well in the scene during which Daphne announces her engagement to Osgood III while dancing around and shaking maracas. Originally as filmed, that scene did not include the maracas; but in test screenings, the dialogue produced a considerable amount of laughter that was in conflict with the scene’s pace. The dancing and the maracas were added to slow the dialogue delivery and to allow the audience enough time to laugh without conflicting with what the actors said.

George Raft, because of his history in such roles, brings weight and depth to the otherwise two-dimensional character of Spats and likewise, Pat O’Brien, the quintessential hard-nosed Irishman, brings the same qualities to Federal Agent Mulligan. Joe E. Brown is, well, Joe E. Brown; and the actress who plays Sweet Sue, Joan Shawlee, renders her character with a zany hostile bitchery.

As difficult as it may be to anoint a scene from Some Like It Hot as its best or to pick a favorite, I want to note two seemingly insignificant scenes in which both Tony and Jack are particularly effective.

During the sleeping berth scene, which precedes the party scene, when Sugar snuggles up to Daphne and then begins to rub her obviously warm feet against the female impersonator’s cold ones, bouncing around and jiggling her more than ample chests, Jack is particularly funny and effectively transmits his arousal along with his need to stay in character, as he repeats, in pain: I’m a girl; I’m a girl. His body language, his facial expressions, the tone of his voice reveal a man on the verge of losing control and one who desperately wants to be, at that very moment, a non-girl.

Tony’s scene comes near the end of the movie when Joe as Josephine is standing off stage at the proscenium curtain, partially concealed by shadow, watching a pained, saddened Sugar as she sings “I’m Through With Love”. With a pained facial expression that matches Sugar’s, and sadness in his eyes, Tony deftly reveals a man who suddenly recognizes how appalling his behavior and his treatment of Sugar has actually been. He steps onto the stage, out of the shadows and into the light, visually signifying that he is now a different person, revealed later by his confession to the ingenuous Sugar.

Why did I select these scenes? Well, because God lives in the details.

A genius is a person who understands what the rest of us only know about. In that regard, Billy Wilder was truly a genius. He understood story and dialogue. His sense of humor and his sense of the dramatic were unequaled. But then, he also understood the humor and the drama that is human nature, an understanding that some filmmakers seem to lack.

He has been unjustly criticized for a pedestrian use of the camera, eschewing what he considered to be the use of cinematography in an altogether unrealistic manner, employing camera set-ups and odd angles that only served to call attention to themselves and distracted from the story. For Billy Wilder, the story, the dialogue that revealed his characters, were the paramount aspects of movie making, not showing just how ingenious he could be with a camera. In spite of this odd criticism, Billy Wilder received twenty-one Academy Award nominations during his lengthy career: eight for best directing, twelve for best screenplay writing and one as the producer of a Best Picture winner.

With eight best directing nominations, he is the second most nominated director in Academy history, along with Martin Scorsese; William Wyler is first. Wilder is the second most nominated screenwriter in Academy history; Woody Allen is first. He won six Oscars: two for best directing, The Lost Weekend and The Apartment; three for best screenplay writing, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Blvd and The Apartment, which also won the Best Picture Oscar in 1961. In addition, he received AFI’s Life Achievement Award in 1986 along with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988.

No doubt, an artist is most often judged by his impact on those who follow him. Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba said during his 1993 Oscar acceptance speech: I would like to believe in God in order to thank him. But I just believe in Billy Wilder. So, thank you Mr. Wilder. According to Trueba, Wilder telephoned him the following day to say: Fernando, it’s God. French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius said, during his Oscar acceptance speech: I would like to thank the following three people: I would like to thank Billy Wilder; I would like to thank Billy Wilder; and I would like to thank Billy Wilder.

By all accounts, Billy and Marilyn suffered with an odd relationship, love-hate some contend. Billy once called her the meanest woman in Hollywood and expressed incredulity over the religious cult that was developing around her. He alternately praised and denigrated her, not uncommon in Marilyn’s canon.

After her death, Billy softened. Gary Vitacco-Robles reports in his Marilyn biography that Billy once cried during an interview when Marilyn entered the conversation. We just happen to miss her like hell (Vitacco-Robles 161), he reportedly said while admitting the sun never set on a day that did not include a thought about Marilyn. I’ve seen many photographs of Billy with Marilyn. Trust me on this one: he loved her. But she was, after all, The Agony and the Ecstasy. It should be no surprise that two of Marilyn’s most memorable movies were directed by Billy Wilder.