– By Cate Marquis –
Director Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” is widely regarded as the greatest movie comedy of all time, a hilarious story set in the Roaring Twenties about a pair of musicians who go on the run to escape a gangster, after witnessing a murder, and hide out by disguising themselves as women to join a “all-girl” band headed out of town. The great classic comedy combines elements of a buddy movie, a road comedy, a gangster action movie, a romantic comedy, and then adds in a gender-bending farce, and stars Marilyn Monroe (in perhaps her best role), funnyman Jack Lemmon and handsome Tony Curtis. The musical “Some Like It Hot,” on stage now at the Fabulous Fox theater, was inspired by that great comedy. While the original movie has several songs, it isn’t primarily a musical. This modern stage production transforms it into full-blown musical.
Actually, this is not the first musical based on this great comedy movie. The first one was called “Sugar,” the name of Marilyn Monroe’s singer character, and sticks closer to the movie’s story. The “Some Like It Hot” musical keeps the characters’ names and a general outline of the plot but it makes significant changes. While “Some Like It Hot” provides some entertainment and keeps the movie’s gender-bending theme (leans into it, actually), it is probably more enjoyable if you have not seen the far-funnier, much cleverer classic movie.
The original comedy movie is set in 1929, the height of the Prohibition era, with speakeasies serving bootleg booze and gangsters fighting it out for territory in the Roaring Twenties. It’s an era of wide-spread prosperity but Chicago musicians Jerry and Joe are barely scrapping by. When the buddies accidentally witness a gangland killing based on the infamous St. Valentine’s Massacre, the guys go on the run to avoid being killed themselves by gangster kingpin Spats (Devon Goffman), who wants no witnesses. To avoid detection, the two musicians disguise themselves as women to join an “all-girl” band headed for sunny Florida, a playground for millionaires in that era.
The musical’s story still starts in Chicago with gangsters and all but, for some unknown reason, the story is moved to the Great Depression, in 1933 – after FDR was elected President with a promise to get rid of Prohibition and get the country back to work. In 1933, Prohibition is still in effect but everyone knows it’s on its way out – one of the first thing’s the new President did was legalize beer. However, this musical exists in strange historical bubble where speakeasies are still raided by police, jobs are still easy to come by, and the Roaring Twenties party is still going on, even if people sometimes mention the Depression. Why the change, which just makes things more complicated? Who knows.
The movie’s gangland massacre also is reduced, to a single killing of a “stool pigeon,” toothpick Charlie (Michael Skrzek, for collaborating with the police. But musicians Jerry (Tavis Kordell) and Joe (Matt Loehr) are still in danger and go on the run, disguising themselves as women to join Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopaters. The band is led by brassy Sweet Sue (Tarra Conner Jones), who is also the owner of a speakeasy that gets shut down by a raid. The band heads for California rather than Florida, traveling by train just like in the movie, which gives Joe and Jerry, now Josephine and Daphne (“I never liked the name Geraldine”), time to establish their new personas, and to get to know the band’s beautiful singer Sugar (Leandra Ellis-Gaston). They arrive in San Diego at the Hotel del Coronado (the real San Diego hotel where the movie was actually shot, instead of distant Florida).
A few tweaks to update things for modern attitudes may have been needed, but most of the changes made seem just for the sake of change, and detract rather than improve. Why you would want to mess with comedy perfection anyway, I don’t know.
The original movie is filled with sparkling dialog, non-stop laughs, clever twists playing around with identity, and a sly social commentary that couldn’t be said out loud in the 1950s but might be joked about in a comedy. This musical is very much a product of the present. While it’s not as funny or clever as the original, it still can entertain, if you never saw the movie and don’t know what you’re missing.
Photo by Matthew Murphy.
Jerry and Joe have different reactions to posing as women, as they do in the movie. Joe is a bit of a roving-eye romeo, and Jerry/Daphne has to keep reminding him to rein in his leering wolf tendencies, by telling him to keep saying to himself, “I’m a girl.” Jerry, on the other hand, gets into being Daphne, even developing a little feminist indignation at men’s behavior, and eventually, Joe/Josephine starts reminding Jerry/Daphne to tell himself “I’m a boy.” It makes a nice comic echo but you know it isn’t really going to stick for either of them.
We find out that Sugar has ambitions to get into the movies, so she’s thrilled to find a movie crew is staying in the same hotel in San Diego, while they are shooting a movie there. Joe/Josephine, who has become Sugar’s best friend on the train trip, now he poses as a member of the film crew too, so he can finally woo her. Jerry/Daphne, meanwhile, becomes the romantic focus of a millionaire named Osgood (Edward Juvier), who pursues him/her relentlessly.
In the movie, Tony Curtis as Joe/Josephine makes a more convincing and prettier woman than Jack Lemmon’s Geraldine/Daphne but it is Daphne who attracts the millionaire, in a comic twist as well as a “love is blind” commentary. In this musical, Tavis Kordell is the beauty, in a dress or not. Joe/Josephine adapts to multiple personas in both movie and musical but the musical lacks Tony Curtis’ impersonation of Cary Grant as the millionaires’ son he plays in the movie. In both there is a lot about identity and re-inventing oneself and the original has gender-bending commentary too. (There is a terrific BBC article about that and more, “Why Some Like It Hot is the greatest comedy ever,” easy to find with Google.) In the musical, the gender-bending works a different and bolder, because it’s 2025, not 1959.
The musical creates a backstory for Jerry and Joe, where they grew up as brothers after Joe’s family abandoned him as a boy, and while they are still musicians, saxophone and bass, they are mostly a tap dancing team. This gives the musical its most entertaining aspect, with plentiful dance numbers. There was a little dancing in the movie but here it is front and center, in very entertaining fashion.
If you are a fan of tap dance, this is a wonderful show, as it is plentiful. There are lots of song and dance numbers but, oddly, none of the wonderful songs from the film. The songs are all new, and the gender bending comedy is more updated and open, instead of sly double-entendres sneaked past the 1950s censors or jokes the hide social commentary that could not be said out loud in the socially conservative, rigid 1950s.
Although the changes, especially the move to the Great Depression, creates more problems for the musical than needed (why mess with comedy perfection?), the musical is entertaining and lively, with plenty of dancing and comedy, and keeping that gender-bending that is in the original, although the musical makes it more serious in the end. The performers are great, especially tap dancers Matt Loehr and Tavis Kordell. The songs are less memorable than those in the movie, but the performers do well with them, especially Leandra Ellis-Gaston as Sugar and Tarra Conner Jones, as a sassy Sweet Sue.
The musical “Some Like It Hot” isn’t as funny or clever as the great movie original but it does provide some fun and a lot of great tap dancing. It is more fun for those who have not seen the classic film, and won’t know what they are missing. However, it is still recommended to watch the great classic comedy movie first, which, luckily, is easy to find streaming or to rent. It’s always best to start with the original. That BBC article mentioned earlier will tell you why.
The musical “Some Like It Hot” is on stage at the Fabulous Fox through March 9.
© Cate Marquis
