49 Fun Facts About Some Like it Hot

Which later cross-dressing comedy finished second to Some Like It Hot in the American Film Institute's 2000 poll of the funniest films?

Tootsie was the runner-up. The winner had a rocky start of its own: a first preview audience in Pacific Palisades barely laughed, and only a second screening for students in Westwood brought the roars.

Which song with a 'boop-boop-a-doop' hook does Marilyn Monroe sing in Some Like It Hot?

I Wanna Be Loved by You was the 1928 hit of Helen Kane, widely seen as the model for Betty Boop; she sued the cartoon's makers for stealing her singing style and lost.

Which dance does Jack Lemmon's character perform until dawn with his millionaire admirer in Some Like It Hot?

Tango: the pair pass a rose from mouth to mouth as they dance to a Cuban band, and by morning Lemmon's character has accepted a proposal of marriage.

Which pressure group judged Some Like It Hot 'seriously offensive' to traditional standards of morality in 1959?

The Legion of Decency, the Catholic film watchdog, heard 'outright smut' in the dialogue, but its disapproval did the film no harm: it was one of the biggest box-office hits of 1959.

In the final scene of Some Like It Hot, Joe, Jerry and Sugar escape the gangsters in what?

A motorboat is waiting at the pier to run them out to a millionaire's yacht; on the way Joe pulls off his wig and owns up to Sugar, who wants him anyway.

What is the name of the all-female band Joe and Jerry join?

Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators lose two players just before their train leaves for Florida, which is how two strangers land the jobs by telephone, one of them speaking in falsetto.

Which Florida city is the all-girl band's train bound for in Some Like It Hot?

Miami never actually appears on screen: every one of the film's 'Florida' scenes was shot on the other side of the country, in California.

Which instrument does Joe play?

Saxophone, which is awkward: Sugar says she joined an all-girl band precisely to escape sax players, the men she can never resist and who always let her down.

What female names do Joe and Jerry take when they go into disguise?

Josephine and Daphne: the plan was for Jerry to be Geraldine, but when the bandleader asks their names on the platform he blurts out a different one on the spot.

Joe woos Sugar by posing as the heir to which fortune?

Shell Oil is improvised from a prop: Joe is holding a basket of seashells, says collecting them runs in the family, and adds that this is why they named the oil company after them.

Whose accent does Joe imitate while playing the millionaire Junior?

Cary Grant's voice is a sly anachronism: the story is set in 1929, three years before Grant made his first film, and Jerry duly snaps that nobody talks like that.

In Some Like It Hot, what is the name of the much-married millionaire who pursues Jerry in disguise?

Osgood Fielding III owns the yacht that Joe passes off as his own, which is why Jerry has to keep the old boy busy ashore for a whole night.

Which comedian played the smitten millionaire who delivers the last line of Some Like It Hot?

Joe E. Brown was a top box-office clown of the 1930s, famous for his enormous mouth; a generation later this small role handed him the line he is now best remembered for.

What is the celebrated closing line of Some Like It Hot?

"Well, nobody's perfect!" was a last-minute stopgap: the writers pencilled it in on the eve of shooting, meaning to come up with something better, and never did.

What is the name of the Chicago mob boss who owns the speakeasy?

"Spats" Colombo gets his comeuppance at a mob banquet in Florida, where a rival has him shot for making too much noise in Chicago and letting two witnesses get away.

Which actor played the mob boss hunting Joe and Jerry?

George Raft sends up his own past: when a young hood flips a coin, the trick Raft made famous in Scarface, his character sneers, 'Where did you pick up that cheap trick?'

Which informant tips off the police, leading to the raid on the speakeasy?

"Toothpick" Charlie soon pays for the tip-off: the gangsters he betrayed gun down him and his men in his own garage, the killing Joe and Jerry stumble into.

The garage shooting the pair witness was inspired by which real event?

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 saw seven men tied to Bugs Moran's gang lined up in a Chicago garage and shot by killers disguised as policemen, a hit long linked to Al Capone.

Who co-wrote the screenplay with Wilder?

I. A. L. Diamond had written with Wilder only once before; the two went on to make ten more films together, and Wilder credited the film's famous last line to Diamond alone.

Some Like It Hot traces its plot back to which French film of the 1930s?

Fanfare of Love has two jobless musicians dress as women to join an all-female orchestra bound for the Riviera; the gangsters were Wilder's own addition.

Sugar Kane dreams of marrying a millionaire who wears what, a detail Joe promptly adds to his disguise?

Glasses: Sugar reckons men who wear them are gentler, so Joe steals the band manager's pair for his millionaire act, and her kisses duly steam them up.

Which real California resort doubled as the Seminole Ritz in Some Like It Hot?

Hotel del Coronado was picked because the Victorian seaside resort had barely changed in decades and could pass for the 1920s.

Why was Some Like It Hot shot in black and white?

Drag makeup looked ghoulish in colour tests, and Monroe, who had wanted colour, gave way once she saw the footage of her co-stars.

Who designed Monroe's gowns and the men's drag outfits?

Orry-Kelly was hired to dress Monroe; when the rented stock frocks tried on the two men fitted hopelessly, Wilder had him make theirs as well.

Some Like It Hot won its only Academy Award in which category?

Best Costume Design was its lone win from six nominations: Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder both lost to Ben-Hur, which took a record eleven Oscars that night.

Monroe kept fluffing 'Where's the bourbon?', so Wilder pasted the line inside what?

The drawers were ones she had to rummage through on camera; after dozens of takes Wilder pasted the line in one, she opened the wrong one, and he had it pasted in every drawer.

Which star was in line to play Jerry in Some Like It Hot before the part went to Jack Lemmon?

Frank Sinatra was the bigger name wanted for the part; accounts differ on whether Wilder dropped him or he lost interest, and it was Monroe's signing that let Wilder cast Lemmon.

Which comedian turned down the part later played by Lemmon because he refused to do drag?

Jerry Lewis would not spend half a film in a dress and came to regret it: decades later he said Wilder had dubbed him the schmuck who turned down Some Like It Hot.

In Some Like It Hot, the Chicago speakeasy where Joe and Jerry play is disguised as what?

A funeral parlour: the whiskey arrives by hearse in a coffin, drinks are served as coffee, and the password is that you have come to Grandma's funeral.

In Some Like It Hot, Sugar Kane says she always gets 'the fuzzy end of' what?

The lollipop is Sugar's image for her luck with men, who borrow her money, spend it on other women and vanish, leaving only old socks and a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste.

Tony Curtis was widely quoted as saying that kissing Marilyn Monroe was like kissing whom?

Hitler is the comparison pinned on Curtis after long days of retakes with Monroe; in 2001 he insisted that he had never said it and that everybody misquoted him.

In Some Like It Hot, which engagement gift from Jerry's millionaire suitor does Joe pass on to Sugar?

A diamond bracelet: Joe slips it into a box of flowers and pushes it across the hall to Sugar's door, a parting gift from the millionaire he has been pretending to be.

Which instrument does Jack Lemmon's Jerry play in Some Like It Hot?

Bass: the bullet holes it picked up at the garage shooting are what give the two 'girls' away when the gangsters reach Florida.

Monroe and Wilder had previously worked together on which 1955 film?

The Seven Year Itch was their first film together; asked after this one about a third, Wilder said his doctor and his psychiatrist had told him he was too old and too rich to go through it again.

Which man in Marilyn Monroe's life was a frequent, and some say disruptive, presence on the Some Like It Hot set?

Arthur Miller, her husband at the time, made a special trip to join her on location and kept turning up on the set, where some of Wilder's crew found him a disruptive presence.

Which award did Marilyn Monroe win for playing Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot?

A Golden Globe for best actress was her reward; the Academy did not even nominate her, though Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder were both up for Oscars.

In Some Like It Hot, what is it that 'some like hot', according to Joe's beach chat with Sugar?

Jazz: Sugar says her band plays it 'real hot', and Joe, posing as a stuffy millionaire, replies that some like it hot but he prefers classical music.

Which organisation lists Some Like It Hot among the first 25 films in its National Film Registry?

The Library of Congress chose it in 1989. The registry grew out of a row over colorizing old black-and-white movies: under the 1988 law, a listed film altered without its makers' consent had to carry a notice saying so.

At the gangsters' banquet in Some Like It Hot, a gunman bursts out of what to shoot the Chicago boss?

A birthday cake is wheeled in while the mobsters sing For He's a Jolly Good Fellow; the gunman inside is played by Edward G. Robinson Jr., son of the star of Little Caesar.

In Some Like It Hot, Jerry's millionaire fiancé wants a Riviera honeymoon, but Jerry is leaning toward where?

Niagara Falls: Jerry is untroubled that he is a man, since he plans to own up straight after the ceremony, get a quick annulment and live on the alimony.

In Some Like It Hot, Jerry watches Sugar Kane walk by and says she moves like what 'on springs'?

Jell-O on springs: Jerry, wobbling on high heels he can barely balance in, decides she must have a built-in motor and that women are 'a whole different sex'.

Censors in which US state wanted the love scenes between Monroe and Curtis cut from Some Like It Hot?

Kansas censors had no quarrel with the men in dresses; it was the steamy scene between Monroe and Curtis on the yacht that they wanted trimmed before the film could play.

Which football star took the Tony Curtis role in a 1984 Atlantic City staging of the musical Sugar?

Joe Namath, the quarterback long nicknamed Broadway Joe, played much of the show in drag, and the New York Times found him more persuasive with each stage outing.

Where does Sugar Kane hide her flask of bourbon from the bandleader in Some Like It Hot?

In her garter, which is how it slips to the floor mid-rehearsal; Jerry says the flask is his, and a grateful Sugar climbs up to his berth that night to thank him.

Besides singing, which instrument does Sugar Kane play in Some Like It Hot?

Ukulele: Sugar introduces herself as a ukulele player who sings a bit, admits she hasn't much of a voice, and adds that it isn't much of a band either.

The Mafia meeting at the hotel hides behind which front organisation?

Friends of Italian Opera fools nobody: a federal agent greets the 'opera-lovers' in the hotel lobby, and the Chicago boss gives Rigoletto as his alibi for a murder.

Which boss presides over the Mafia meeting in Some Like It Hot and has his Chicago rival gunned down?

Little Bonaparte is a send-up of the gangster classic Little Caesar, and he orders the killing while pretending to honour his rival at a banquet.

When Joe breaks up with Sugar by phone, which country does he claim he is moving to?

Venezuela, where he says the family has oil interests: the board has arranged a 'merger' with an oil boss's daughter, whom the tax adviser rates only so-so.

In Some Like It Hot, what do Joe and Jerry pawn in the Chicago winter to bet on a racing dog?

Their overcoats go to the bookie, the dog loses, and the pair are left trudging through a Chicago blizzard without them, which makes a paid trip to Florida hard to refuse.