"That's Just Like Jello on Springs"

Some Like It Hot is based on a premise full of comedic potential.  Joe and Jerry, a bass and saxophone player in a 20’s speakeasy end up on the run from the mob after they witness a mob hit.  With little option they join an all women’s band after donning disguises that the audience can see right through even though everyone around them cannot.  Complications will, of course, ensue when one of them falls for Sugar Kane.

The film starts quickly with a car chase, but it doesn’t come into focus until its starlet appears on screen:

As Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon (Joe and Jerry) complain about the difficulties of walking on high heels, Marilyn Monroe makes her first appearance to show the boys how it is done.  All her male counterparts can do is admire Monroe and comment that when she walks it is “Just Like Jello on Springs”.

I’ve never been one to buy in to the hype concerning Marilyn Monroe, but she is electrifying.  Even Cassandra couldn’t help by comment on her appearance.  It may be because she shares almost all of her scenes with Curtis and Lemmon while their characters are attempting to convince others they are women, that Monroe appears so very striking but Monroe makes today’s television and film stars seem small. By design she’s an airhead who can’t help but fall for saxophone players, but she’s so charming and she makes the film work by complicating it.

Perhaps it is because I’ve seen re-rurns of Bosom Buddies (an 80’s tv show staring Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari where two men dress as women to rent an apartment in a women’s only building) that the gags were at times predictable, but that isn’t a knock on Some Like It Hot.  Some Like It Hot would’ve had the gags first of course.  We were laughing even as the film went to credits. It isn’t the kind of comedy that will have you rolling on the floor, but it is innocent and re-watchable.  Today’s comedies would’ve gone and stayed blue with the comedy.  There were a few pokes and small jabs here and there, but the line is never crossed and the film is never crass.  It is full of clean fun even as gangsters shoot each other with tommy guns. We both agree (for the first time in years on a film) and give Some Like It Hot a solid 4. It is worth your time.