Some Like It Hot: stage vs screen

Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as two musicians who dress as women to hide from the mob, with Marilyn Monroe as the singer Sugar Kane. The Broadway musical, which opened in 2022 with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, and a book by Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin, keeps the all-female band and the chase but changes who these characters are. Here are the biggest differences.

Stage

Broadway musical (2022)

Screen

Some Like It Hot (1959), directed by Billy Wilder

1. A new year, and a trip west instead of south

The film begins in Prohibition-era Chicago and sends the band by train to a beach hotel in Miami. The musical is set in 1933, near the end of Prohibition, and sends Sweet Sue's band west to San Diego and the Hotel del Coronado, with a side trip to Mexico. The end of Prohibition itself becomes part of the story's wrap-up.

2. Jerry is a Black musician

The musical makes Jerry a Black performer. Spats Colombo's hiring manager, who is prejudiced against Black people, offers work only to Joe, and Colombo hires both men only after seeing their tap act, the Tip-Tap Twins. J. Harrison Ghee, who played Jerry and Daphne, won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. The film's Jerry, played by Jack Lemmon, has no comparable thread.

3. Daphne's story and a different last line

In the film, Jerry tears off his wig to tell Osgood Fielding III he is a man, and Osgood answers with the famous "Nobody's perfect." In the musical, Daphne tells Joe she is both Jerry and Daphne, Osgood reveals his own second identity, Pedro Francisco Alvarez, and he assures Daphne he still thinks she is perfect. Daphne marries him, and he opens a club called Daphnecita's.

4. Joe woos Sugar as Kip, not as Junior

In the film, Tony Curtis's Joe pretends to be Junior, a millionaire heir to the Shell Oil fortune. In the musical, Christian Borle's Joe steals the luggage of Austrian screenwriter Kip von der Plotz and woos Sugar as Kip. Sugar falls for him, and the two share "Let's Dance the World Away." Sugar then performs "Ride Out the Storm" after learning Kip has left.

5. Sugar wants Hollywood, not a millionaire

Marilyn Monroe's Sugar has sworn off saxophone players and hopes to find a gentle, bespectacled millionaire in Florida. The musical's Sugar, played by Adrianna Hicks, still admits a weakness for saxophone players but dreams of movie stardom, and she sings of it in "At the Old Majestic Nickel Matinee." By the end, she is an MGM star.

6. The mob is dealt with differently

In the film, the gangsters gather at the Florida hotel for a Mafia meeting, and rival boss Little Bonaparte has Spats and his men gunned down at the banquet. In the musical, Colombo's men recognize the trio, Joe unmasks himself, and Agent Mulligan, dressed as Josephine, arrests Colombo. Joe then testifies without naming Daphne. Earlier, Sweet Sue discovers Joe's disguise and agrees to keep it secret until the show ends.

7. Period songs become a new swing-era score

The film is a comedy, though Monroe sings a few period songs, including "Runnin' Wild," "I Wanna Be Loved by You," and "I'm Thru with Love." The musical has an original score by Shaiman and Wittman, with numbers such as "You Can't Have Me (If You Don't Have Him)," "Vamp!," and "Let's Be Bad." Osgood leads both "Poor Little Millionaire" and "Fly, Mariposa, Fly," his song for Daphne about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

8. Tap dancing becomes the engine

The film's comedy runs on disguise and chases, not dance. Director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw built the musical around big tap numbers, and Joe, Jerry, and Sugar become the Tip-Tap Trio in "Take It Up A Step." Nicholaw won the Tony Award for Best Choreography, and the show also won for costumes and orchestrations.

Some Like It Hot movie vs musical: FAQs