Billy Wilder – Some Like It Hot
Like QT and the Coens, Wilder managed to not only direct multiple stone-cold classics, he was able to direct his own scripts as well, without overloading himself. Essaying a strong line in laugh out loud scripts with a caustic underbelly, Wilder can lay claim to some of the best scripts and best films in Hollywood history. Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Ace In The Hole, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, Witness for the Prosecution, The Apartment, The Fortune Cookie – trying to gainsay his status as one of the best is an exercise in futility. Trying to pick his best is tricky to say the least.
But Some Like It Hot is the winner. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in drag just keeps getting funnier and funnier over time and Curtis’s spot-on Cary Grant impression is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s easy to forget that the story uses the St Valentine’s Day Massacre as its jumping off point, but it really helps to have serious stakes to anchor the unravelling hilarity of all that ensues. If there wasn’t real hazard for our heroes, why would they maintain the charade?
As with all great scripts, SLIH has superb set-pieces as well as an expertly crafted story and terrific one-liners. Jack Lemmon waxing eloquent about his night with a new-found sugar daddy, maracas all a-shaky, Tony Curtis pretending to be emotionally inert with Marilyn Monroe (“oh look, your glasses have steamed up”), Lemmon playing his double base back to front, it keeps washing over you. One of the great films.
