Word: lemmons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Some Like It Hot," a gangster-era comedy directed by Billy Wilder and scripted by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, features Lemmon's best performance ever. Lemmon and co-star Tony Curtis play a pair of Chicago musicians who witness the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The Mob wants the two permanently silenced and the musicians decide to leave Chicago any way they...
With frilly frocks, cloche hats and new names--Curtis becomes 'Josephine,' and Lemmon 'Daphne'--in place, they join an all girl band with a gig in far-away Florida. This is no ordinary all-girl band, for it features Marilyn Monroe, at her ripest and most Iuscious, as Sugar Kane, a chanteuse and clarinet player with a weakness for liquor and rakes...
Meanwhile, Daphne is courted by a real millionaire (played by the great Joe E. Brown) who showers her with presents, leads her through a whirlwind romance and finally proposes marriage. (In one of the film's most infamous exchanges Josephine asks Daphne, "Why would a guy marry another guy?" Lemmon answers, "Security...
...acting honors in "Some Like It Hot," however, belong to Lemmon. Wilder referred to Lemmon as a ham, and here it works to the film's advantage. Lemmon's complete surrender to his role, his willingness to look absolutely ridiculous, mirrors the comedy of the musician's giving in to the pleasures of being a woman. Daphne loves wearing the clothes, and loves the attention she gets from men; she begins to think of herself as a really sexy girl...
...Lemmon's character goes from being the same and sober one of the pair--Curtis is the flamboyant, womanizing risk-taker--to a state of madcap abandon. There's a gleam in his eyes as he shakes a pair of maracas, or holds a rose between his teeth during a tango with Brown, that is nothing short of priceless. The tango scene is one of the greatest in comedy film history, and it works because of Lemmon...