Daily Dialogue — October 12, 2015
JERRY: (Disgusted) Dirty old man!
JOE: What happened?
JERRY: I just got pinched in the elevator.
JOE: Now you know how the other half lives.
JERRY: Look at that! I’m not even pretty.
JOE: They don’t care, just as long as you’re wearing a skirt. It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
JERRY: Really? Well, I’m sick of being the flag. I want to be a bull again. Now what do you say? Let’s get out of here. Let’s blow.
JOE: Blow where?
JERRY: You promised me, Joe, that the minute we hit Florida we were gonna beat it.
JOE: How can we? We’re broke.
JERRY: Well, we could find another band — a male band.
JOE: Look, stupid, right now Spats Columbo and his chumps for us in every male band in the country.
JERRY: Just so humiliating.
JOE: So you got pinched in the elevator. So what? Would you rather be picking lead out of your navel?
JERRY: All right, all right. But how long do you think we can keep this up?
JOE: What’s the beef? We’re sittin’ pretty. Look, we get room and board. We’re gettin’ paid every week. Look. Look at the palm trees. Flying fish.
JERRY: What are you giving me with the flying fish? I know why you want to stay here. You’re after Sugar.
JOE: Me? After Sugar?
JERRY: I saw you, the both of you on that bus all lovey-dovey and whispering and giggling and borrowing each other’s lipstick. I saw you!
JOE: What are you talking about? Me and Sugar?
JERRY: You and Sugar!
JOE: We’re just like sisters!
JERRY: Well, I’m your fairy godmother. And I’m gonna keep an eye on you.
— Some Like It Hot (1959), screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, suggested by a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Cross Dressing. Today’s suggestion by Will King.
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: Commentary by Will: “My favorite delivery in this scene is Tony Curtis with a gravelly, throaty, very male voice as he delivers the line ‘We’re just like sisters!’”