TCM Presents for June was a real treat - a big screen presentation of Some Like it Hot (1959). #1 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Laughs, this film is among director Billy Wilder's masterworks. The story focuses on two musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) who inadvertently witness the murder of seven gangsters in Jazz Age Chicago. On the lam from kingpin "Spats" Colombo (George Raft) who ordered the massacre, Joe and Jerry don dresses, become Josephine and Daphne, and join and all-girl's band headed to Florida. Intending to get a free ride south and then head on to Mexico, Joe and Jerry instead are trapped with entanglements. Joe assumes the disguise of millionaire Shell Oil Junior at first to seduce girl singer Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), but finds himself falling in love with her instead. Jerry, however, is being pursued by actual millionaire Osgood Fielding, III (Joe E. Brown), who is unaware of "Daphne's" actual genter. Added to this, there is the meeting of the Convention of Italian Opera Lovers Association in their hotel, headed by Little Bonaparte (Nehemiah Persoff) and attended by "Spats" and his cronies.
One of the nice things about seeing this film in a theatre is listening to people actually laughing at the jokes in a 58 year old movie. The story is timeless, and so is the dialogue. Jack Lemmon is especially funny - his switches back and forth from "I'm a girl" to "I'm a boy" are the icing on this gender-switching farce. His interactions with the unappreciated Joe E. Brown are also priceless bits of comedy. It's also fun to watch Billy Wilder incorporate references to old gangster films of the 1930s. Witness Edward G. Robinson, Jr. (as Johnny Paradise) mimic George Raft's Guino Rinaldo in Scarface with his coin-tossing antics. "Where did you pick up that cheap trick?" Raft asks. According to the AFI Catalog, Wilder wanted Edward G. Robinson to appear in the film, but Robinson declined. He despised George Raft, and had vowed never to work with him again. One wonders if he enjoyed watching his son gun down Robinson late in the film!
Another visitor from the land of the 1930s gangster picture is Pat O'Brien, who often played a good guy in those early films. Here he is again on the side of law and order as Mulligan, the police detective investigating the massacre. He's got some nice repartee with both Raft and Nehemiah Persoff, making his relatively small role memorable. Tony Curtis had some troubles with doing a falsetto (his lines as Josephine are partially dubbed by Paul Frees), but he had no problems doing his Cary Grant imitation (Grant would later jokingly tell Billy Wilder "I don't talk like that!!!" (The Guardian)). Curtis came up with the idea of doing Shell Oil Junior as Mr. Grant, rather than just talk like Joe. Wilder, who had always wanted to work with Mr. Grant, was amused. Curtis, who later did a tribute to Mr. Grant for TCM, stated that he wanted to imitate Mr. Grant because it implied culture, and because he had always wanted to work with Cary Grant. The film was originally to be shot in color, but the makeup that the men wore was just too outlandish in color. Though Marilyn Monroe had expected (and wanted) to appear in a color film, Billy Wilder showed her the color rushes - she agreed to the switch to black and white.
When you watch this film today, you wonder how Mr. Wilder and Mr. Diamond were able to pull of this very daring film (the film was condemned by the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency). Yet, despite its edginess, audiences embraced it when it opened (see this TCM Article for more on the film's release). Very loosely based on a German film (Fanfaren Der Liebe) in which two musicians cross-dress (among their many wardrobe changes) to get jobs, Wilder and Diamond added the 1930s gangster angle. Frank Sinatra and Mitzi Gaynor were considered for the parts of Jerry/Daphne and Sugar. At one point, Wilder wanted Danny Kaye and Bob Hope for Jerry and Joe, but ultimately decided on Curtis and Lemmon.
For
all those Star Trek fans out there, watch for Grace Lee Whitney (in the
unbilled role, Rosella). She's very obvious in the party scene on the
train to Florida.
Though it did well at the box office, it didn't garner all that many awards - Golden Globe Awards for both Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe (the Globe has awards for acting in comedies, which surely helped against the juggernaut of Ben Hur). History has been kinder the to the film, and besides being first on the AFI comedy list, it is also #22 on the AFI's 100 Years, 100 Films, 10th Edition, as well as #48 on AFI's 100 Greatest Quotes of All Time. I'm going to leave you with that quote. Quite frankly, the line IS perfect!
Thanks to TCM's Fathom Events series, we were able to view Double Indemnity (1944) in a theatre on a big screen. And what a difference it makes! The action becomes all the more intense, and you notice little things that you never saw before (like the fact that Walter Neff inexplicably wears a wedding ring). And the performances fairly sizzle! But regardless of the screen size, this is a film that has appeared on the AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list (at #38), on their list of greatest love stories (#84), greatest thrillers (#24), and greatest villains - the magnificent Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson (#8).
A brief rundown of the plot is in order: We meet Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), as he literally shuffles into his office. He turns on his Dictaphone; his coat falls back, and we see a hole in his shoulder. He begins to record a message for his boss, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), regarding a recent insurance claim: "you said it wasn't an accident, check. You said it wasn't suicide, check. You said it was murder... check." And thus begins Walter's "confession" of the murder of his client, Dietrichson (Tom Powers) and his torrid affair with Dietrichson's wife, Phyllis.
We were treated to an introduction by Robert Osborne; this TCM article
will provide some of the information he discussed. For example, Alan
Ladd and George Raft were originally asked to play Walter Neff; both
turned the part down - Raft because he wouldn't be playing the good guy
(Brian Donlevy is another actor who allegedly passed on the role).
Fred MacMurray was the next choice. MacMurray was also not sure
that the part was for him, but director Billy Wilder thankfully
convinced him otherwise. MacMurray is a revelation as Neff; one wonders
at the reaction of audiences from 1944, who were only familiar with
MacMurray's prior work as a light comedian in romances. Two reviews
provide only the merest glimpse: this New York Times was not enthused by the film, while Variety
praised Fred MacMurray for his "considerable restraint" as Neff.
Wilder would later cast MacMurray as the philandering executive Walter
Sheldrake in The Apartment. Again, according to this AFI article, some amount of convincing was required on Wilder's part.
Edward G. Robinson was also not originally thrilled to be playing
Keyes. Robinson had spent his career since Little Caesar playing the
lead. Now, though his name was still above the title, he was third
billed, and playing a character part to MacMurray's leading man role.
However, his willingness to take on a character part paid off well. He
is outstanding as Keyes - smart and interesting. A lesser actor would
have not had the power to threaten Walter's complacency over his perfect
crime. Robinson, who had long played overpowering men (despite his
diminutive size), continues to do so with this cagey insurance
executive. His importance as an actor within the genre of film noir is
undeniable. After Double Indemnity, he would go on to impressive
performances in such noir classics as The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, and The Stranger (where he again chose the character part to great effect).
The current ending of the film was not the one written by co-author
Raymond Chandler. Originally, the film would have ended with Walter's
execution in the California gas chamber, but following previews the
scene was cut - over Chandler's vocal objections (A scene in which
Phyllis and Walter commit suicide was also written, but was rejected and
never filmed). The Production Code Administration's Joseph Breen found
the execution scene "unduly gruesome", and Wilder did not feel that it
matched with his vision of the film, so it was excised from the
picture. Though lost, production stills of the scene survive.
And then, there is Stanwyck. She is amazing as Phyllis - beautiful, smart, passionate, but cold and calculating. Watch her eyes as her husband dies in the car seat beside her - you can see into her soul in that scene. The Modern Times blog discusses Stanwyck's concerns with the role - her fascination with the character, and her fear that she - who had never played such a whole-hearted villain before - was not equipped to play the complex part. Luckily, Billy Wilder thought otherwise, and he again was able to get the right actor for the right part. To me, her most interesting scene is the death of her husband, but the second scene that comes to mind when talking about the film is her descent down the staircase, her leg adorned with a gold anklet. RogerEbert.com has an interesting article that discusses the anklet, which was not a part of James M. Cain's original story. The addition of the anklet provides insight into both Phyllis and Neff - Phyllis marked, in a sense as the possession of a man she despises, and Neff, who finds the anklet almost as fascinating as the woman who wears it. The anklet is a sexual bond between the two.
If you've never seen this impressive movie, by all means get hold of it (DVD, BluRay, streaming, rental, library - whatever meets your needs). I'm sure you'll be as enamored of it as we are. We'll close this with an early scene (and one which also raised a flag with the Breen office), Walter's first conversation with Phyllis (and you'll get to see the infamous anklet):
