Daily Dialogue — December 12, 2015

Jerry: Oh no you don’t! Osgood, I’m gonna level with you. We can’t get married at all.
Osgood: Why not?
Jerry: Well, in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.
Osgood: Doesn’t matter.
Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!
Osgood: I don’t care.
Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I’ve been living with a saxophone player.
Osgood: I forgive you.
Jerry: [tragically] I can never have children!
Osgood: We can adopt some.
Jerry: But you don’t understand, Osgood! Ohh…

Jerry finally gives up and pulls off his wig.

Jerry: [normal voice] I’m a man!
Osgood: [shrugs] Well, nobody’s perfect!

Jerry looks on with disbelief as Osgood continues smiling with indifference. Fade out.

— Some Like It Hot (1959), screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Misunderstanding.

Trivia: According to I.A.L. Diamond, he and Billy Wilder spent a year developing the script. Initially, the script was set in contemporary times because they felt they needed a situation more powerful than poverty to compel the characters to dress as women. Diamond suggested that a period setting would make it easier for the audience to accept female impersonation and Wilder then came up with the idea to set the story during the jazz age and have their characters witness a gangland slaying as motivation for hiding out.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The ruse — two musicians taking on the roles of women — is intentional, but the misunderstanding occurs on the part of Osgood. Doesn’t seem to bother him as he ends the movie with one of the most memorable final lines in film history.