Some Like It Hot is showing at the Prince Charles Cinema near Leicester Square in London’s West End on Tuesday, February 10, at 12:15 pm. This screening is part of a Valentine’s at the PCC series, ahead of this year’s lovefest – although whether inspired by the film’s romantic storyline or the St. Valentine’s Day massacre, who can say?
“Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day, more than just about any other day with a title, is a mass marketing scheme playing lovers for suckers, a bonanza for Hallmark Cards and Whitman’s Samplers and one that probably creates as much heartbreak as romantic goodwill. I’m not the sentimental type, but I do have an enormous fondness for one movie in which Valentine’s Day plays a prominent role.
In the early scenes of Some Like it Hot, the 1959 Billy Wilder masterpiece that is consistently chosen by critics and film people as the best comedy ever made, a pair of itinerant Depression Era musicians witness the gangland execution of seven men in a Chicago garage and spend the rest of the movie on the run from the mob.
In real life, the massacre resulted from a territorial feud between the Italian mob led by Al Capone and the Irish gang of Bugs Moran. In the movie, the shooting is carried out by the gang of Spats Colombo (George Raft), who coincidentally encounters the two witnesses, now undercover and in drag in an all girls’ band at a beachside resort in California.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre may not be the best reason to watch Some Like It Hot, but it’s got more romance and fun than any other movie associated with the holiday …”
– Jack Mathews, Gold Derby
The Marilyn Report 