Great Scene: “Some Like It Hot”

A memorable set of scenes from the classic 1959 Billy Wilder comedy.

Plot summary: After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.

Screenplay by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond, suggested by a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan.

Scene setup: Joe (Tony Curtis) convinces Jerry (Jack Lemmon) to go out on a date with Osgood (Joe E. Brown) so Joe, dressed up like a Cary Grant-style millionaire, can woo Sugar (Marilyn Monroe) on Osgood’s yacht. The hitch: Jerry has to continue impersonating Daphne, a member of the all-female band, and goes dancing with Osgood to lure him off his yacht.

Here is a poor quality video of the scene as it’s shot:

Notice the deft use of cross-cuts. Here are the Daphne-Osgood scenes cut together and a much better quality video:

Here are the Joe and Sugar seduction scenes cut together:

But HERE is the scene I want to focus on. Directly following the previous scenes. First, the script pages:

And here is the hugely entertaining movie version of the scene:

In talking about screenwriting, Wilder said, “Just have good characters and good scenes and something that plays.” This scene definitely plays. Wilder and Diamond knew they could milk this situation and they do for all its worth, one perfect setup line provided by Joe, followed by a Jerry punch line.

Note how even though the maracas are mentioned at the top of the scene, there is no reference in the script to Jerry playing them. I’m positive the reason Wilder had Lemmon keep doing that little maracas dance routine was to give the audience time to laugh at each of Lemmon’s lines. Without those five seconds or so, audience laughter would drown out the dialogue.

Check out what Wilder says about the Joe-Sugar seduction scene on the yacht [excerpt taken from the excellent Conversations with Wilder in which Cameron Crowe conducted several interviews with Wilder]:

BW: There was, for instance, the situation where Tony Curtis steals the clothes of the guy, and plays now Mr. Shell. The Shell family, do you remember? And he now gets also the boat of Mr. Joe E. Brown, who is dancing somewhere with Mr. Lemmon. You have two things going there. Now Joe E. Brown, dancing a tango with Lemmon, that’s going to be good, I knew that. We had that cold, the dips, and the rose in the teeth, you know.

CC: Is that the kind of moment you’d already acted out in the room, writing with Izzy [Diamond]?

BW: [Shakes his head immediately] No, we just knew it. Now, when we were writing, we got a very good idea, a very important part of the picture. The idea was that he, Curtis, invites Monroe back to the boat of Mr. Shell. And it’s all set up, they’re alone. Now there’s going to be sex, right? I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking, this is no good, this is expected. But what we will do is that [sparkle in his eye] he plays it impotent! And she suggests the sex. And she fucks him — that has to be better. It must be better to be subdued, seduced, and screwed by Marilyn Monroe — what could be better? So we switched this thing around. And we had the scene, right? I cam in the morning before we filmed. I just said, “Look — we are now at the situation where he takes her to the boat. There’s nothing new here. But how about this?”

Now, we set it up, it was just like picking oranges, you know. Because it was just all there. And now we can say what his family spent his fortune on, trying to cure him. “We tried Javanese dancers with bells on, we had every goddamn thing, and every doctor — it doesn’t work.” [Laughs] And she says, “May I try?” And then they try. And you know his real feelings by what happens to his leg, as it goes up, the leg goes up, and she’s kissing him. “How is that?” she says. “I don’t know,” he says. And up goes the leg. She says, “Let me give it another try, just one more thing.” Now we lose them and we know what happens. So the idea, that made that scene. Because otherwise it’s just too flat. [Wilder still marvels at the scene.] She’s kissing, and Curtis is laying there on the couch. Kissing him, with the camera here, and now you see the leg coming up, in back of her. Wonderful!

CC: And the leg is so important, it’s the final touch.

BW: Absolutely, yes.

CC: The leg is everything. And did that come in the rehearsals, or was that part of the idea?

BW: That was part of the writing. It was easy. It just came.

Wilder and Diamond were comic geniuses. Consider this: Wilder co-writes (with Diamond) and directs Some Like It Hot which is released in 1959. The very next year, The Apartment comes out, also co-written (with Diamond) and directed by Wilder. Two of the greatest comedies of all time in back to back years. Completely different types of comedy, yet both brilliant films.

Wilder. An amazing filmmaker. Diamond. An amazing writing partner.

For more articles in the Great Scene series, go here.