Some Like It Hot (1959)

Wilder's 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies, a film of inspiration and meticulous craft, a movie that's about nothing but sex and yet pretends it's about crime and greed.

Key to its success - along with its vivid characters and brilliant performances - is the snappy pace throughout. Non-stop gags, invention, twists and comic incident flow, as Joe and Jerry - sexy Curtis and screamingly funny Lemmon - elude mob boss George Raft by wriggling into an all-girl jazz band, with Josephine and Daphne’s legendary drag act taking in amorous adventures, seductive deceptions and madcap pursuits.

Some Like It Hot, directed in masterly style by Billy Wilder, is probably the funniest picture of recent memory. It's a whacky, clever, farcical comedy that starts off like a firecracker and keeps on throwing off lively sparks till the very end.

Reinvented by Wilder and co-screenwriter co-writer IAL Diamond, Some Like It Hot is effortlessly fluent, joyous and buoyant: a high-concept comedy that stays as high as a kite, while other comedies flag. "Nobody's perfect" is the last line. Wilder, Lemmon, Curtis and Monroe come pretty close.

Some Like It Hot is another supersonic, breakneck, belly-laugh comedy that should be a block-busting bonanza at the box office. It should be a proof that when the making of pictures is taken out of the bands of men-of-measured-merriment and handed over to men whose only purpose is to create amusement, they are still the world's best means of entertainment. Billy Wilder, who produced, directed and wrote the screenplay, with I.A.L. Diamond, was on the front burner all the way.