 An opening prologue sets the 1929 Prohibition-era story in motion as police speed through Chicago chasing a hearse filled with rum-running gangsters and a booze-filled casket on its way to a funeral home/illegal speakeasy run by gangster Spats Columbo (tailor-made Raft). The subsequent raid by police detective Mulligan (O'Brien) to shut down the bar fails to implicate Columbo and his good squad directly, but it gets down-and-out musicians Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) on the run. When the sax and bass player witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre staged by Spats, Joe and Jerry take the only way out of town they can find: pose as women and travel with an all-girl band to Florida for a three-week stint in disguise to avoid getting rubbed out by the mob.
On the train ride, Joe and Jerry meet "Sugar" Kane Kowalczyk, lead singer for Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators and a woman who admittedly always gets the "fuzzy end of the lollipop" in life. While posing in drag, Joe and Jerry's rakish instincts take over as both attempt to wheedle their way into Sugar's trust in hopes of eventually hitting on her out of their feminine facades. The situation is rife for gut-busting laughs but also story-shattering cliches of comedy, yet Wilder and Diamond's clever script cuts through the obvious, casts it quickly aside, and enlivens this sex-swapping theme through specific, sympathetic characters audiences root for despite the inanity of their dilemma. Lemmon, Curtis and Monroe mine the script for every witty nugget it contains and deliver heightened-yet-human performances, and their three-way comedic timing is impeccable if not astonishing.
 Spats and his thugs (including great character actors like Mike Mazurki and Harry Wilson) coincidentally show up at the same hotel where Sweet Sue's band plays to attend a national hoods' convention led by Columbo's gangland competitor Little Bonapart (menacing Nehemiah Persoff), forcing Joe and Jerry to maintain their identities as Josephine and Daphne in the band. Naturally Joe continues making his moves on Sugar, posing as a Cary Grant-styled heir of the Shell Oil fortune to woo her while she turns on her charm to seduce him. Meanwhile Jerry/Geraldine is subjected to the unwanted affections of playboy Osgood Fielding III (Brown) playing his game of romance and temptation.
Any reviewer does SOME LIKE IT HOT an injustice to reveal how this farcical melee plays out by the end since any summary cannot replicate the ingenious magic created by filmmakers and actors which makes the unbelievable believable. Wilder and Diamond make their inevitable end game play freshly hilarious even in repeat viewings, heightening their witty game of con jobs and chases to its absurdly delightful finale. The famous one-liner delivered by Joe E. Brown in the last scene kicks the entire story up one more riotous, ridiculous notch before quickly dropping viewers off at the end credits like a roller coaster ride. Trust me, you'll want to get right back on and watch it again.
SOME LIKE IT HOT is a battle of the sexes and an American comedy for the ages, and includes some of the very best work in the careers of Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. Despite an embarrassment of riches, the film also stands out as a highpoint in both Wilder and Diamond's careers as well, providing a template for what many fans and critics declare a perfect comedy.
BLU-RAY PRESENTATION
Charles Lang's original 1.66:1 widescreen cinematography is beautifully preserved, so you may notice very slight 'pillarboxing' on the sides of your HDTV screen but they don't interfere with viewing at all. Given the film's age from 1959, the 1080p transfer looks surprisingly good and rich, likely thanks in part to a 2006 overhaul for a 2-disc collector's edition DVD release. Lang's expertly shot photography mimics period black-and-white movies while making the best of late-1950s lenses and film stock, all of which fearlessly meet the challenge of HD presentation. Some grain survives the transfer and rightly so since it gives the film its period texture, yet little if any unwanted artifacts due to noise reduction or edge-fixing exist. Contrast and brightness remain well-balanced and image detail is definitely the clearest fans will have seen in home theaters, whether it's capturing the patterns on Jack Lemmon's maracas or depicting the gossamer lace on Marilyn's diaphanous gowns.
As with other recent MGM/Fox home entertainment releases like THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, this film is provided with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix for Blu-ray presentation, though this is largely a technological upgrade for today's surrounds system home theaters and presents very subtle multi-channel results consistent with its origins. Expect some of the more active audio scenes and moments of Adolph Deutsch's jazzy original score to make the rounds in your rear channels, but the vast majority of the film's audio remains up front and central to at least mimic the film's original, flatter mix. Dialogue, the copious amounts of source and score music, and action all remain clearly defined and free from any noise or distortion, which is both expected and welcome.
BLU-RAY BONUS FEATURES
Like other recent re-releases from MGM/Fox Home Entertainment, the Blu-ray menu itself is bare bones, generic and quite uninspired but functional — it's the quality of the Bonus Features contained there which will give value to fans and cinephiles wanting to add SOME LIKE IT HOT to their home theater BD collection:
Perhaps the weak link in an otherwise strong chain of features, the Audio Commentary by Paul Diamond (I.A.L. Diamond's son) and contemporary comedy writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (fans of the film with no direct connection) cobble together a somewhat rambling track which fluctuates from informative to loosely conversational. Basically the trio agrees with out great the film is, though actual commentary topics vary wildly based on the given speaker's areas of interest and information. Tidbits can indeed educational for viewers, and the archival audio interview segments with stars Curtis and Lemmon are welcome additions but can be repetitive with video bonus features included on the disc. Give it a lesson on a subsequent viewing, but only a commentary track with Wilder and/or Diamond would really knock this one out of the park, and neither contributor recorded such comments during their lives. Stick with the remaining features for better fan satisfaction.
The Making of Some Like It Hot boasts many archival interviews with the film's principals including Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and more which combined present a fun and informative featurette, with a run time of nearly 26 minutes. Filmmakers and stars address the oft-reported (and sometimes exaggerated) difficulties in working with Monroe, who would either play out pages of dialogue perfectly or fail to emerge from her dressing room for hours, depending on the circumstances and who is telling the story. Even Curtis' own recollections (the most recently taped of the foursome) vary from telling to telling, including his infamous comment that kissing Monroe was like kissing Hitler, which Tony either plays off as a joke or straight denies he ever said. Certainly, there is as much legend maintenance as making-of memories going on here, but it's rare enough to get such direct insights from those in front of and behind the cameras to overlook a few inconsistencies and the standard-definition quality of this extra.
Likewise The Legend of Some Like It Hot fondly salutes the unexpected longevity of Wilder's comedy, which hardly opened with a bang in 1959 as critics gave it wildly mixed reviews. The film's reputation and fan appreciation grew slowly and steadily over the years, eventually being recognized in many Top Ten and Top 100 lists by critics and film historians as a bonafide cinema classic. This feature boasts a special treat, including clips and interviews from the film's 25th Anniversary celebration at a San Diego retrospective festival. Wilder, Lemmon and Curtis take justifiable pride (and some joyous surprise too) at how popular their film continued to be after a quarter-century, and its reputation hasn't tarnished at all after 50 years.
Film critic Leonard Maltin sits down with star Tony Curtis for a "Nostalgic Look Back" one-on-one chat at Hollywood's legendary Formosa Cafe, a favorite watering hole right across the street from what was the Samuel Goldwyn Studio where much of SOME LIKE IT HOT was filmed. Curtis shares amusing anecdotes about how he was originally cast in the film opposite Frank Sinatra and Mitzi Gaynor before Lemmon and Monroe replaced them after the bombshell actress suddenly became available for the role and Sinatra was deemed too difficult to work with. As noted, Curtis changes (or misremembers) a few of the details in these versions of his production memories — one story telling has Curtis testing his female persona in the women's room with Monroe, while another has he and Lemmon testing their looks together — but fans can realistically expect both versions to blend fact and fantasy a bit. It doesn't matter really, since end result of the film remains the same either way. Running over 31 minutes, this is the longest bonus feature on the disc and very much worth viewing.
Four surviving supporting actresses share Memories from the Sweet Sues in a 12-minute featurette with some of the real women in the band. They share tales of how half of them had to bleach their hair blonde to make the Syncopators band all look the same, yet all had to avoid duplicating Monroe's iconic platinum blonde style. The actresses speak glowingly of director Billy Wilder in terms of creativity on-set and patience while dealing with Monroe who repeatedly flubbed her lines when having bad days. Yet the women still recall her fondly and rhapsodize about Monroe's beauty, even staying to watch her shoot scenes after the girls' scenes had wrapped. The foursome also offer deserved praise for the comedic talents of off-screen personality of Joan Shawlee, who portrayed Sweet Sue as the leader of the girls' band.
The Virtual Hall of Memories offers a broad gallery of stills and clips culled from the film's production which is a treat for film fans and historians, even if it is navigated by a quite outdated-looking CG hallway meant to resemble the Del Coronado hotel used in the movie but looking a bit more like a spruced up Haunted Mansion. The original Theatrical Trailer rounds out the Bonus Feature collection for a glimpse at how Wilder's classic comedy was marketed to moviegoers before it was deemed such a benchmark in American cinema.
REVIEW SUMMARY
Named by the American Film Institute in 2000 as the best American comedy of all time, SOME LIKE IT HOT finally makes its long-awaited debut on high-definition Blu-ray disc, and its audacious, battle-of-the-sexes sense of humor retains its high laugh quotient fifty years after its release. MGM/Fox offers a handsome HD transfer for the digital age which emphasizes the film's sumptuous visual quality while betraying none of its age. Standard definition bonus features pay deserving tribute to Wilder's landmark comedy, elevated by Diamond's timelessly witty script which plays just as smooth and sassy as ever. FilmEdge gives SOME LIKE IT HOT our jazziest five star rating as an indispensable addition to any film lover's video library, and a wild farce which can be enjoyed by all ages time and again.
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