“I don’t want you to think I’m a drinker. I can stop anytime I want to… only I don’t want to, especially when I’m blue.”
Spoken by Sugar Kane, as she drinks from a silver flask she had hidden under her dress in her garter belt. Portrayed by the stunning Marilyn Monroe, Sugar is a ukulele player and singer in an all girl band during Prohibition in 1929. On a train ride from cold Chicago to sunny Florida she has just made friends with the two new additions to the band: sax player Daphne and Josephine on bass.
The bubbly Sugar notices nothing unusual about the newcomers except for Daphne’s kindness in taking the rap for the aforementioned flask. But Daphne and Josephine do have a secret: They’re running from the mob after witnessing the boss, “Spats,” participate in a takedown of his enemies with a tommy gun, an event inspired by the real life St. Valentine’s Day massacre.
But Josephine and Daphne were not in the garage during the massacre, their true selves of Joe and Jerry were, and now they are on the run. The two men must also resist showing their affections for Sugar as their lives depend upon people believing they are a pair of fancy ladies who went to a “Conservatory.”
The duo soon discover some of the difficulties of being a woman, starting with high heels of course. Having a hard time maintaining his balance, Jerry asks, “How do they walk in these things!?” But they have much bigger concerns than keeping their boobs in place or staving off the unwanted affections of men. Trouble finds its way to them, as their hotel is hosting “Friends of Italian Opera,” a big time mobster get-together.
The same gang who wants them in a Chicago Overcoat and swimming with the fishes has stumbled upon the musicians. Josephine and Daphne’s freedom and escape may need quite a bit of good luck, telling the truth about who they are, and help from a wealthy admirer. The millionaire Osgood Fielding III has fallen for Daphne and wants to make her his wife. He has one of the best lines to end the film.
Some Like It Hot stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Joe E. Brown, and George Raft. Directed by Billy Wilder.
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This evening’s cartoon has Bugs Bunny getting into a musical battle with an opera singer in Long Haired Hare from 1949.
