Thoughts on 'Sex and the Single Girl'

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Helen Gurley Brown (Natalie Wood): You know, when you smile like that, you do look like Jack Lemmon!

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In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown's "Sex and the Single Girl" was a best–selling self–help book that encouraged women to become financially independent and to experience sex outside the traditional marriage relationship.

The movie that was released 50 years ago today had the same title and its lead character (played by Natalie Wood) had Dr. Brown's name, but that was just about all the two really had in common.

Tony Curtis played the managing editor of STOP magazine, a real rag of a publication, who wanted to get a scoop on Brown. He had already published an article alleging that Brown was a virgin, and that article had damaged her reputation. Half a dozen of her patients had quit on her, and Brown was intent on suing Curtis, who wanted to interview Brown but had no luck.

So Curtis' character impersonated his housemate (Henry Fonda) who worked in women's hosiery, pretending to be having marital problems so he could get closer to Brown. In the reality of the movie, Fonda actually was having problems with his wife (Lauren Bacall).

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And where would a Tony Curtis movie be without a car chase? That's how "Sex and the Single Girl" concluded: with just about everyone involved in a car chase and then living happily ever after (apparently).

Much of the movie was a farce about mistaken identity, sort of a single–joke "Midsummer Night's Dream." I have never read Brown's book, but it only inspired the screenplay, most of which apparently was written by Joseph Heller. Brown got partial credit for the story, but that may be because it was her book's title, not its content, that inspired it.

It wasn't clever. It wasn't thought provoking. It was mostly silly and contrived. It wasn't Heller's best work.

At one point, Fonda was accused of bigamy, which turned out to be false. That set up lots of cheap jokes about fidelity. To be honest, I had to wonder how stars of such stature as Fonda and Bacall got roped into this project.

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I laughed out loud when Brown compared Curtis' character to Jack Lemmon in "Some Like It Hot," but that sort of thing didn't happen very much. Curtis and Lemmon, of course, were co–stars with Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot" — and there are folks who will tell you it was the best comedy ever made. (That is hard — but not impossible — to dispute.)

I don't know if that is true, but I know that the talent in "Some Like It Hot" was superior to the talent in "Sex and the Single Girl" — at least when you compare how the talent was used.

Fonda, for example, was capable of comedy even though he was usually seen in dramatic roles. The same could be said of Bacall and Wood. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that the material in "Sex and the Single Girl" just wasn't worthy of their talents. (You couldn't say that about "Some Like It Hot.")

Maybe the producers should have been faithful to the original book.

Some Folks Still Like It Hot

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"Well, nobody's perfect!"

Osgood (Joe E. Brown)
#48 on AFI's list of memorable movie lines

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Some think that "Some Like It Hot," which hit the theaters 55 years ago today, was Billy Wilder's best movie.

That's really a matter of opinion, I guess. Wilder was director, producer and/or screenwriter of so many great movies it would be hard to pick the very best.

From that lengthy list of movies in which Wilder was involved in some way, the American Film Institute ranked "Some Like It Hot" behind "Sunset Boulevard" in its list of the top 100 movies of the last century — but it still landed in the Top 25 (at #22).

Since "Sunset Boulevard" is not a comedy, I suppose that means that AFI regards "Some Like It Hot" as Wilder's best comedy — and that is pretty impressive by itself, considering that he was a screenwriter of "Ninotchka" and director/screenwriter/producer of "Stalag 17," "Sabrina," "The Apartment," "The Fortune Cookie" and "The Seven–Year Itch."

AFI absolutely thinks "Some Like It Hot" is the best comedy of all time, and its female lead, Marilyn Monroe, is sixth on AFI's list of the 50 greatest actresses.

(Incidentally, of those six movies, only "Ninotchka" and "The Apartment" made AFI's Top 100 list. "Some Like It Hot" clearly is in a more exclusive club than I thought. Wilder worked on another movie that made the AFI list — "Double Indemnity" — but it definitely was not a comedy.)

Neither of the male leads — Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis — made AFI's list of the 50 greatest actors. Oh, well, guess you can't win them all.

Roger Ebert wrote that "Some Like It Hot" was "one of the enduring treasures of the movies." Coming from a guy who unflinchingly called 'em the way he saw 'em, that was high praise — and richly deserved, too.

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Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe): Story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

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Here's the premise of the movie: Curtis and Lemmon played musicians at a Prohibition–era watering hole in Chicago. They lost their jobs and wound up being witnesses to a gangland massacre in a garage on Valentine's Day. Sound familiar?

The two looked for a way to hide from the gangsters, then hit upon the idea of posing as female musicians in an all–girl band en route to sunny Florida. Along the way, they became acquainted with Sugar Kane (Monroe), and both were smitten — but they had to keep up appearances and not act on their attraction.

Sugar, meanwhile, had her own problems with men, and all sorts of other issues arose, not the least of which was the constant struggle that Curtis and Lemmon waged between their attraction for Sugar and their desire not to be caught by the gangsters who were following them.

I know that Monroe often felt typecast and under–appreciated during her career — but it is easy to see how she could fall into that kind of trap when you see how easily she played clueless blondes like Sugar (and the girl in "The Seven–Year Itch" who was so clueless — and banal — she was known only as the Girl.)

Lemmon summed up her character nicely in "Some Like It Hot" when he watched her walk away early in the movie and remarked that she moved like "Jell–O on springs."

Another angle to the story involved the bandleader, who had issued a ban on drinking that Sugar was always violating. Lemmon (under the assumed name of Daphne) and Sugar were drinking on the train one night, and all the girls in the band (except Curtis, who slept blissfully unaware in the berth below — for awhile) had an impromptu party with each contributing some type of alcohol.

A cross–dressing comedy may not sound as intriguing to modern moviegoers (brought up on "Tootsie" and "The Birdcage") as it was to those half a century ago, but it was a rather new plot device in 1959.

If you have never seen "Some Like It Hot," you can probably imagine the many plot twists that were made possible by this story line.

But, then again, if you haven't seen it, you really can't imagine it — because the viewers never knew what Jack Lemmon or Marilyn Monroe (or Tony Curtis) would do until they saw them do it.

And you could never be sure what a Billy Wilder movie was going to be like until you saw it.