Aug 28, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 23 segments
Dozens of takes for a single line, a leading lady who terrified her director, and cinema's best closing gag. John, Luke, and Matt pick the story back up. Part 2 turns to the crew, the score and Jack…
The crew.
We've talked about Billy Wilder and the cast, but Some Like It Hot had a crew behind it well worth getting into as well.
We'll be talking about Adolph Deutsch, who scored the film, and Charles Lang behind the camera as director of photography, but on this film, there's really only one place to begin-
Yeah
... with the screenplay.
Mm-hmm.
Of course.
So the credited writers on Some Like It Hot are Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, with story by credits for Robert Thoren and Michael Logan.
We've covered Wilder's career already.
40 credits as a screenwriter to this point.
Mm-hmm.
And I.A.L. Diamond was the writing name of Itzhak Dominicki, a Romanian screenwriter, and this was his 17th feature credit, and second collaboration with Wilder.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It would be the start of a beautiful friendship, wouldn't it, Matt?
It certainly would.
So how was the writing on Some Like It Hot?
I think this is just a great example of working out the plot first and then adding the jokes-
Mm-hmm
... because everything about this is watertight.
Yeah.
The fact that Jerry and Joe are dressed as women, apart from the first reveal, that's never actually played for laughs because that would just be a cheap, easy, lazy gag.
All the jokes just build on that.
It's not the fact they're dressed up as women that's funny, it's the fact that they're both lusting after other women at the same time, and then another man-
Mm-hmm
The crew.
We've talked about Billy Wilder and the cast, but Some Like It Hot had a crew behind it well worth getting into as well.
We'll be talking about Adolph Deutsch, who scored the film, and Charles Lang behind the camera as director of photography, but on this film, there's really only one place to begin-
Yeah
... with the screenplay.
Mm-hmm.
Of course.
So the credited writers on Some Like It Hot are Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, with story by credits for Robert Thoren and Michael Logan.
We've covered Wilder's career already.
40 credits as a screenwriter to this point.
Mm-hmm.
And I.A.L. Diamond was the writing name of Itzhak Dominicki, a Romanian screenwriter, and this was his 17th feature credit, and second collaboration with Wilder.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
It would be the start of a beautiful friendship, wouldn't it, Matt?
It certainly would.
So how was the writing on Some Like It Hot?
I think this is just a great example of working out the plot first and then adding the jokes-
Mm-hmm
... because everything about this is watertight.
Yeah.
The fact that Jerry and Joe are dressed as women, apart from the first reveal, that's never actually played for laughs because that would just be a cheap, easy, lazy gag.
All the jokes just build on that.
It's not the fact they're dressed up as women that's funny, it's the fact that they're both lusting after other women at the same time, and then another man-
Mm-hmm
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