Delayed Reaction: Some Like It Hot

The Pitch: Two men escape the mob by pretending to be women.

How I Came Into It: Lately, I've been working through a lot of movies that are considered "the best". AFI chose this as the top Comedy movie in American Cinema. It was among the first 25 films added to the National Film Registry (before movies like Fantasia and The Godfather). Short of maybe Citizen Kane, my expectations couldn't've been higher.

Why I Saw It: As with comedy more than drama, context matters. Many of the jokes don't land as powerfully these days because comedy is about surprise. Something this well known has been done and redone and referenced and complicated and reconfigured a million ways by now. And this is farce, which almost demands suspension of disbelief. That said, it's hard to pick at much in this movie. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon make a great duo (It's no surprise that they went on to work together many times after this). Marilyn Monroe wasn't an exceptional actress, but she certainly plays to all her strengths here. I was surprised how many jokes the movie got away with. It is so heavy on innuendo that I didn't think was allowed back then. As it turns out, this film's success was one of the major blows that brought down the Hays code. That cements its significance.
Simply put, I liked this for its levity and direction of the well-crafted screenplay.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I'm not as big of a fan of this brand of comedy. I end up spending too much time trying to poke holes in the mechanics of the farce, even if there end up being none.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend