best films: #48: SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

Previously rated and blogged at #50
The second half of the countdown is officially commencing with one of the funniest, zaniest flicks you'll ever see, Some Like it Hot. Starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in some of their most enjoyable performances (though I'm not generally a huge Tony Curtis fan as a general rule), and Marilyn Monroe in a great comedic, romantic interest performance as Sugar Kane, a member of a traveling all-female musical troupe. We all know what goes down; Lemmon and Curtis' characters end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and have to flee some violent mobsters. Their solution? To dress up in drag as female musicians Daphne and Josephine and join Monroe's girl group on a tour. It's a terribly funny physical comedy, but it astounds me, when thinking of the tough censorship that seemed to be the hallmark of 1950s cinema, that this movie, with its men in skirts and allusions to homosexuality (see the forever famous final scene), managed to make it to general audiences. Well we can all thank goodness that it did, as it's still endlessly entertaining and quotable, and Monroe has never been more fun.

Standout Performance: Though Monroe was having an obviously great time as the sultry ukulele player, Lemmon showed off his excellent comedic stylings in fine form as the goof-ball half of the central drag pairing.