Some Like It Hot is showing in The Film House at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catherine’s, near Niagara Falls in South Ontario, Canada next Saturday, May 3 at 7 pm, hosted by YOUth Film Club as part of a weekend-long series, Essential Queer Cinema.
“From the outrageous camp of Pink Flamingos to the tender coming-of-age in Cowboys, the gender-bending hilarity of Some Like It Hot to the animated heroism of Nimona, and the passionate artistry of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, experience groundbreaking narratives that have shaped queer identity and cinematic history. These aren’t just films; they’re stories that the members of the Youth Film Club see themselves in — across generations.”
While Some Like It Hot wasn’t queer by design, its fluid depiction of gender and sexuality defied the censors back in 1959 – and has lost none of its subversive appeal.
“Truly one of the nails in the coffin of the Production Code, Some Like It Hot featured cross dressing, homosexuality, tommy gun massacres, double entendres, suggestive clothing and maybe the best movie ending of all time … Richard Barrios argues that the picture is a ‘carnival of sexual liberation’, it shows Daphne’s (Jack Lemmon) transformation from a man who is competing with Joe (Tony Curtis) for Sugar’s (Marilyn Monroe) affections to one who embraces his new identity as a female … Joe, while posing as a successful millionaire, who has unfortunately had two ponies drowned under him whilst playing water polo, seduces Sugar aboard a yacht after revealing that women tend to ‘leave him cold’. Sugar is more than happy to try and cure him of his impotence and a few kisses later, his glasses have steamed up, Gerd Gemünden says that the themes of heat and steam permeate throughout the picture, literally and figuratively allowing the ‘temperature to rise’ … Speaking of Monroe, Billy Wilder managed to use lighting in a clever manner during her performance of ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You‘ — with only the upper part of her body bathed in the the spotlight. Again, the topic of sexuality was obvious for all the audience to see … Roger Ebert describes this moment as one of the most ‘blatantly sexual’ in all of movies, with the neckline of the dress ‘scooping to a censors eyebrow north of trouble.’”
– Fran Del Pizzo, ‘Billy Wilder Vs. Censorship‘
The Marilyn Report 