Some Like IT Hot - Plot

Plot

It is February 1929 in the city of Chicago. Two friends who are struggling jazz musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis), a saxophone player, irresponsible gambler and ladies' man, and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), a sensible double-bass player, accidentally witness the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. When the gangsters, led by "Spats" Colombo (George Raft), spot them, the two have to run for their lives.

Penniless, freezing cold, and in a rush to get out of town, the two musicians take a job in a women's band headed to Miami. Disguised as women and calling themselves Josephine and Daphne, they board a train with Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, an all-girl band and their male manager, Bienstock. Before they board the train, Joe and Jerry have already noticed Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), the band's vocalist and ukulele player, marveling over how she walks "like Jell-O on springs," as they struggle along in their high heels not at all sure they will be able to pass as women. As they board the train, however, Daphne experiences the kind of sexual harassment common to women when Bienstock feels her up.

Both Joe and Jerry become enamored of Sugar and compete for her affection while maintaining their disguises. Sugar confides that she has sworn off male saxophone players, who have stolen her heart in the past and left her with "the fuzzy end of the lollipop". She has now set her sights on finding a sweet, bespectacled millionaire in Florida. During the forbidden drinking and partying on the train with all the women in the band, Josephine and Daphne become intimate friends with Sugar, and continually have to struggle to remember that they are girls and cannot make a pass at her.

Once in Miami, Joe woos Sugar by assuming a second disguise as a millionaire named Junior, the heir to Shell Oil, while mimicking Cary Grant's voice and feigning disinterest in Sugar. An actual millionaire, an aging mama's boy, the much-married Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), tries repeatedly to pick up Daphne, who repeatedly rebuffs him. One night Osgood invites Daphne for a champagne supper on his yacht. Joe convinces Daphne to keep Osgood occupied onshore, so that Junior can take Sugar to Osgood's yacht, passing it off as his. Once on the yacht, Junior uses metaphors to explain to Sugar that unfortunately, due to psychological trauma, he is impotent and frigid, but that he would certainly marry anyone who could change that. Sugar tries desperately to arouse some sexual response in Junior, and begins to succeed. Meanwhile, Daphne and Osgood dance the tango till dawn.

When Joe and Jerry get back to the hotel, Jerry happily explains that Osgood has proposed and that he has accepted. Joe finally convinces Jerry that he can't actually marry Osgood. Joe then breaks Sugar's heart by telling her that he, Junior, has to marry a woman of his father's choosing and move to Venezuela.

Many mobsters arrive at the hotel for a conference honoring the Friends of Italian Opera. Spats and his gang from Chicago eventually recognize Joe and Jerry as the witnesses to the Valentine's Day murders. After several humorous but potentially lethal chases, Joe and Jerry end up witnessing additional mob killings, this time of Spats and his crew. Once again Joe and Jerry have to run for their lives. Joe, dressed as Josephine, sees Sugar onstage singing sadly that she will never love again. He kisses her before he leaves, and Sugar suddenly understands that Joe is both Josephine and Junior.

Sugar runs from the stage at the end of her performance and is able to jump into the launch from Osgood's yacht just as it is leaving the dock with Joe, Jerry and Osgood in it. Joe tells Sugar that he is not good enough for her, that she would be getting the "fuzzy end of the lollipop" yet again, but Sugar wants him anyway. Jerry, for his part, tries to explain to Osgood that Daphne cannot marry him, offering a series of objections: Daphne smokes a lot; Daphne can't get married in Osgood's mother's dress ("we are not built the same way"); Daphne sadly "can never have children". Osgood dismisses all this information as insignificant; he loves Daphne and is determined to marry her. Finally, exasperated, Jerry removes his wig and says in his male voice, "I'm a man!", but a smiling Osgood overrides this final obstacle with the film's last line, "Well... nobody's perfect!"