Not tonight, Josephine

David bought me a copy of this film today. It seemed a shame that it only cost £3.99 on DVD, as it is a classic. The synopsis is................

‘Two struggling musicians, Joe and Jerry (Curtis and Lemmon), witness what looks like the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929. When the Chicago gangsters, led by 'Spats' Columbo (Raft) spot them, the duo flee for their lives. They escape and decide to leave town, only to find the sole out-of-town jobs available are in an all-girl band headed to Florida. The two disguise themselves as women, calling themselves Josephine and Geraldine (later Jerry changes his pseudonym to Daphne), join the band and board a train. Joe and Jerry both fall for "Sugar Kane" (Monroe), the band's sexy Polish-American vocalist, and fight for her affection while maintaining their disguises’………..and that’s all there is to it!!

One of my favorite films; it has absolutely everything in it.

Marilyn Monroe is an icon. She had an amazing body, beautiful face and a personality that everybody could fall in love with.

I have always been a Tony Curtis fan. If I had to pick my favorite Tony Curtis film it would be difficult to pick between this film and ‘The Vikings’ – a daft period piece, but he was so damn sexy in it. He was an amazing looking man, with those wonderful blue eyes…………..I could bore you for hours on the subject but I won’t.

Jack Lemmon almost stole the show. The closing scene in the film must go down in movie history as one of the most memorable of all time, and if I could fathom how to do it I would add the clip to this blog.

As I’m always interested in obscure facts, here are a few I discovered about the film while I was trawling through the internet;

  1. The film was the all-time highest-grossing comedy up to its time, and one of the most successful films of 1959. It cost $2,883,848 to produce.
  2. The film was originally planned to be filmed in full color, but after several screen tests, it had to be changed to black and white because of a very obvious 'green tint' around the heavy make-up required by Curtis and Lemmon when portraying Josephine and Daphne.
  3. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the eighth greatest comedy film of all time. In 2002, Channel 4 ranked Some Like It Hot as the fifth greatest film ever made in their 100 Greatest Films Poll.
  4. The film's working title was "Not Tonight, Josephine".
  5. The film received six Academy Award nominations including Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay (co-scripting by I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder from a story suggested by Robert Thoeren and M. Logan), Best B/W Cinematography, and Best B/W Art Direction/Set Decoration - with its sole Oscar awarded for Best B/W Costume Design (Orry-Kelly, for costumes including Marilyn Monroe's shimmering gowns). Unfortunately, it was competing against one of the biggest winners in Oscar history - Ben Hur (1959).

If you have never seen this film pick up a copy on DVD and if you don't enjoy I'd be very surprised!

Kx

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