Drive in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Movie: Some Like it Hot (1959)

Bowie Connection: Well, the movie is about two biologically male musicians who wear makeup and dress in traditionally feminine attire. And, while they are not talking ‘bout Monroe, they are talking to Monroe because Marilyn Monroe is the female lead.

Experience: Technically, this was not a drive-in at all, but it was an outdoor showing of the classic movie as part of an all-too short series put on by New York State’s Office of General Services on the lawn of the State Capitol building. This was the last film in the series this year and the only one we were able to attend. It was a largely pleasant evening, but the temperature dropped to the point of being uncomfortable for me (we were sitting on lawn chairs, not on a car). I expect the drive-in season to extend deep into October or even into November, and I plan to attend more, but after this point in the season I expect to mostly be watching the movies from my car.

Movie Review: Some Like It Hot is one of the most well-regarded comedies of all time. Check out its Wikipedia page for the long list of plaudits and awards this movie received at the time and ever since. Sure enough, it holds up as a comedy remarkably well, though it’s more amusing than uproarious. I’ve seen it many times and will likely see it many more times. My thoughts this time, though, influenced by the current state of the culture wars colored by this Bowie-focused project, centered around how the movie treats gender identity. I can imagine seeing it as either regressive or progressive, but I come down on the side of seeing it as remarkably progressive.

On the off chance you don’t know what the movie is about, the plot revolves around two musicians, played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, who witness a mob hit. They are discovered and barely escape but are terrified. To avoid detection, they disguise themselves as women, join an all-women’s band and flee Chicago for Florida. Much of the humor revolves around two basic gags- they and we know that “Josephine” and “Daisy” are really men, and, somewhat more subtly, they, as men experience the indignities of merely existing as women in the middle of the 20th Century. Along the way, they meet up with Monroe, who is also in the band and becomes the object of lust first for Lemmon and then for Curtis.

To the latter point, though it is played for laughs, once disguised as women, Curtis and especially Lemmon’s characters get ogled, wolf-whistled, groped and even stalked. There’s one scene that if depicted slightly differently wouldn’t have been funny, but rather it would have been horrifying, in which a group of mobsters see the two and begin moving toward them with sexually menacing intentions before realizing their true identities. Suddenly the mobsters’ intentions shift to murder. And yes, in context this is funny.

What are we actually seeing? We’re seeing a change in how Curtis and Lemmon are treated once they go from presenting as male to female. The movie is not preachy or judgmental, and I can imagine viewing it as condoning or even celebrating the terms of engagement, but there it is for all to see.

Also hiding in plain sight — whatever the intent of director Billy Wilder– are scenes in which two female-presenting characters kiss (we know Curtis is a man, but the characters who see the kiss don’t know that); Lemmon’s character struggles with gender identity (again for laughs, at one point he has to remind himself that he’s “a boy” and at another point that he’s “a girl”); Lemmon, in drag, enjoys going on a date with a man who he clearly falls for; and, in the truly hilarious final line in the movie, an acceptance of same-sex marriage. I’m not reading into any of this– all this, and more is right there in the movie. I think there’s an assumption that most of the audience of the time would find all of this funny because we’re in the know. We know that Curtis and Lemmon are in disguise, even while the other characters don’t. So their telling “have I got a surprise for you”-style side-comments are funny because we understand them even though the other characters don’t.

But we, the audience are also not in the know because it isn’t supposed to occur to us that what we’re seeing is what we’re seeing. But, going back to Bowie, there is little separation between Lemmon’s reminding himself that he’s a boy or girl and Bowie singing, “you’ve got your mother in a whirl; she can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl.” When, in the end, Lemmon whips off his wig to reveal that he’s a man, man, Bowie uses the same motion in the “Boys Keep Swinging” video twenty years later to reveal that he was presenting as his own backup singers.

As for that last line in the movie? It’s uttered by veteran comedian Joe E. Brown after Lemmon, who had already agreed to Brown’s marriage proposal, tries to back out by offering a series of excuses. Brown bats them away one by one before Lemmon whips off that wig and exclaims, “I’m a man.” with perfect timing and totally deadpan, Brown responds, “Nobody’s perfect.” Hilarious. But also, what he’s actually doing is agreeing to marry Lemmon even though he’s a man.

I have never encountered an interview with David Bowie in which he discussed this movie, but as much as Bowie was ahead of his time, Some Like It Hot has him beat by many years.

There’s much more I can write about this movie, but I’ll leave it there. Funny for sure, and fascinating.

Rating: Four man’s dresses