Some Like It Hot
The movie too HOT for words!
Country
Production
Budget
$2 883 848
Revenue
$25 002 186
Director
Actors
Scenario
Producer
Operator
Composer
Adolph Deutsch
Artist
Audition
Phil Benjamin
Editing
Arthur P. Schmidt
All team (54)
All team (54)
Short description
In Prohibition-era Chicago, jazz musicians Joe and Jerry are earning little and going nowhere when they happen to witness a gangland killing. With the killers after them, the two need to disappear fast. The only way out of town is a train carrying an all-female band to Florida, so they disguise themselves as women and join the group under the names Josephine and Daphne. The arrangement holds for a while, but the singer Sugar Kane becomes the focus of Joe's attention, while Jerry attracts an admirer of his own, and the two men struggle to keep their identities hidden.
Billy Wilder directed and wrote the screenplay with I. A. L. Diamond, producing alongside Doane Harrison. The film is the thirteenth of the twenty-two features Wilder directed, following The Spirit of St. Louis and preceding The Apartment. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play the two musicians, Marilyn Monroe plays Sugar, and George Raft, Pat O'Brien and Joe E. Brown appear in supporting roles. It was made for about 3 million dollars and took roughly 25 million worldwide.
Audience response has stayed strong across decades: on IMDb it rates 8.2/10 from around 304,000 votes, and on TMDB 8.1/10 from about 4,000 votes. A critics' rating of 9.4/10 from 74 reviews places it even higher with reviewers than with the general public.
What's left behind the scenes
- A cabaret dancer named Babette tried to teach Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon to walk in high heels. After a week of training, Lemmon refused his services, stating that he wanted to walk not like a woman, but like a man imitating a woman.
- After first trying on women’s costumes and makeup, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon decided to test how convincingly they could portray women. They wandered around the studio, went into women’s restrooms, adjusted their makeup, and when people stopped paying attention to them, it became clear that believable female images had been created.
- The total audience for the two releases in the USSR amounted to 77.9 million viewers.
- For the roles of Jerry/Daphne, director Billy Wilder initially wanted to cast Frank Sinatra.
- In the scene where Daphne dances the tango with Fielding and he says “you’re leading again,” Fielding is actually leading, and Daphne is in the lady's position (the partner's left hand holds the partner's right hand, his right hand is on her waist, and her left hand is on his shoulder). This is also noticeable in the couples dancing in the background in the correct position. So, after Fielding's remark, they switch into the "incorrect" position.
- When asked if Billy Wilder was willing to make another film with Marilyn Monroe, the director replied: "My doctor and my psychiatrist... say I'm too old and too rich to go through that again."
- The character of mobster Columbo bears a resemblance to the famous Chicago gangster Al Capone. In 1929, Capone orchestrated the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in warehouses on Clark Street, in which members of another gang were gunned down. An identical crime is shown in the film, and Clark Street is also mentioned.
- The film ranks 32nd in attendance among foreign films in Soviet cinema distribution.
- Speaking about his relationship with Monroe, the film's director Billy Wilder said: "It was as if we were flying on a plane, and in the middle of the flight it turned out there was a madman on board." Wilder repeatedly criticized the actress for her behavior. And upon completion of filming, she was not invited to the farewell party.
- The working title of the film was "Not Today, Josephine".
- The famous phrase “Everyone has their flaws” was born completely by chance. It was uttered by I.A.L. Diamond in a conversation with Billy Wilder when they were discussing the film’s ending.
- Mitzie Gaynor, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor were considered for the role of Josephine.
- During its re-release in Soviet cinemas in 1985, the film was seen by 28.9 million people.
- During filming, Marilyn Monroe was pregnant and appeared noticeably larger than usual. Because of this, for promotional materials for the film, her stand-ins Evelyn Moriarty and actress Sandra Warner (who played the role of Emily and was not credited) were filmed in place of Marilyn, and Monroe’s head was later composited onto their images in photographs.
- One of the few American films to receive a "condemned" rating from the Roman Catholic Legion of Decency.
- The image of Josephine, as portrayed by Tony Curtis, was based on several personalities – his own mother, Grace Kelly, and Eve Arden.
- The film was shortened by 17 minutes for Soviet cinema distribution.
- Originally, the falsetto voices of Josephine and Daphne were performed by other actors, Paul Frees and Anthony Perkins. But in the Russian dub, the same actors voiced both the male and female versions of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. These were Felix Yavorsky (Joe/Josephine) and Boris Ivanov (Jerry/Daphne).
- Initially, the film was planned to be shot in color, but after several screen tests, this idea was abandoned due to the obvious green tint around the heavy makeup of Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in the roles of Josephine and Daphne.
- In the original version, when the hero pretends to be a millionaire, Tony Curtis imitates the voice of Cary Grant. Thus, this is arguably the longest parody of one star by another in the history of Hollywood cinema.
- Marilyn Monroe was flawless on screen, but not during filming. Because of her, Tony Curtis had to bite into a chicken leg for 42 takes, as the star couldn’t properly play the scene. Due to this, the actors stood in high heels for 47 takes, sweating under silk stockings and prosthetic breasts.
- Since Billy Wilder believed that it was impossible to film a movie based on a finished script, he continued working on the script with I.A.L. Diamond during filming. They most often did this on weekends, right on the set. They were only able to finish working on the script four days before the end of filming.
- The film's release in the state of Kansas was limited because men dressing as women was considered "too scandalous for the state's residents."
- In the scene of the "farewell" conversation between Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, it is noticeable how the actress's eyes dart from right to left because she is reading her lines from a specially prepared cue card.
- According to Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe was regularly 2-3 hours late to the set, and sometimes refused to leave her dressing room altogether.
- The film was shot based on the German film “Fanfare of Love” (1951), which, in turn, was a remake of the French film of the same name from 1935. However, the German film did not feature any gangsters.
- On the last door in the office building that Jerry and Joe open in their job search, there is a sign that reads "Jules Stein, President." This is the name of a real person, the founder of Music Corporation of America (also indicated on the sign). Film director Billy Wilder and Stein often played cards together.
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Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
