Monday Matinee: Some Like it Hot

In February 1929, unemployed musicians Joe and Jerry go on the run after witnessing the St Valentine's Day Massacre. Pursued by gangsters, the duo are forced to disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's all-girl band on the next train for Florida. Joe is attracted to Sugar Kane, the band's singer, while Jerry finds himself pursued enthusiastically by millionaire Osgood E. Fielding III. Comic complications ensue.. Some Like It Hot is co-written and directed by Billy Wilder. It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee and Nehemiah Persoff in supporting roles. The screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on a screenplay by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan from the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love. Both the gangster story and the screwball antics hark back to Hollywood films of the 1930s, but Wilder?s outrageous and subversive play with gender was truly boundary pushing and helped lead to a loosening of censorship after United Artists released the film without certification. A regular title on lists of the greatest Hollywood comedies,?Some Like It Hot?was released in 1959 and marked a peak in a hot streak for director Billy Wilder.? It?s?as deliriously funny and fresh today as it was when it first knocked audiences out several decades ago.