Criterion Challenge week 13: Some Like It Hot (1959)
Photo courtesy of United Artists Corp / Wikimedia Commons
Some Like It Hot (1959) is a hilarious film featuring the star of Golden Age movies: Marilyn Monroe.
The Criterion Challenge is a weekly film challenge hosted by the community of film lovers on Letterboxd. The goal is to watch 52 new movies in a year, all from the Criterion Collection, with each film fulfilling a weekly category. Three weeks ago, I watched The Red Shoes (1948) for week ten’s challenge: Andrew Garfield’s closet picks. For week 12, I picked one of Celine Song’s top ten movie selections, The Age of Innocence (1993).
This week’s (week thirteen) category focuses on films made in the 1950s. 190 of the collection’s 1700+ films fit within this criteria, and they were made all over the world: the US, Europe, Asia, and even a few labeled as from the Soviet Union.
For this week's challenge, I chose Some Like It Hot (1959). I have always wanted to watch this classic, so it was an easy pick for this week. The film stars Marilyn Monroe, arguably one of the most famous actresses ever. After beginning her career as a model, Monroe quickly skyrocketed to become the face of Hollywood in the golden age of movies. In this movie, Monroe stars alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, who play Joe and Jerry— two unfortunate men in debt to Chicago gangsters during the 1920s.
When it becomes clear that their lives are on the line, Joe and Jerry become desperate to escape their debtors. The only ticket out of town, however, is to join an all-female band on their way to Florida. Joe and Jerry decide to become “Josephine and Daphne” and hop the train to Florida with this orchestra of women. They meet a woman named Sugar Kane, played by Monroe, and their feelings for her get the two of them quickly wrapped up in her antics.
When the band arrives in Florida, the boys become friendly with a few women, including Sugar, who tells them she plans to find a rich man to marry and run away with. Joe takes it upon himself to disguise himself and pursue Sugar while “Daphne” is distracted by a rich, strange man trying to seduce him.
When approaching Sugar, Joe pretends to be the heir to the oil company Shell plc, and the boys further argue as they are entangled in more schemes, hiding that Joe is actually “Josephine” from Sugar, not to mention, far from wealthy. The situation gets even more dicey as they realize the mobsters have followed them from Chicago. With all that said, it is safe to say this movie did not disappoint. It is fast-paced, lively, and just a little dirty. Marilyn Monroe brought an entertaining performance as an actress and singer.
This film is, quite honestly, not as offensive or outdated as one might expect it to be. As to be expected with a timeless classic, this was an easy watch. It was comedic, dramatic, and artistically combined to make a very fun film. This movie is the most popular film in which Marilyn Monroe starred, as ranked by Letterboxd users, and I can see why. I would watch the movie again, giving it four out of five stars.