STORY-STEP-OUTLINE

Screenplay: Billy Wilder und I.A.L. Diamond

Within the brackets you find the numbers of the scenes as used in the screenplay “SOME LIKE IT HOT”, dated Nov. 12, 1958, Ashton Productions, Hollywood, CA.

 

1   (1-2): After a successful exchange of gun bullets with the police some gangsters deliver a coffin full of Whiskey bottles to their boss Spats Colombo at Mozarella’s Funeral Parlor. The police takes silently position around the building. Agent Mulligan gets the entering password from gangster Toothpick Charlie and the admission card to Spats Columbo’s speakeasy which seems to be hidden in Mozarella’s Funeral Parlor.

Step | event: Toothpick Charlie’s betrayal.

 

2   (3-6): Mulligan gets in that speakeasy a Scotch coffee. A music band plays and a bunch of girls dances hot Charleston. Jerry with the bass-fiddle and the saxophone player Joe are happy to get some money after months of unemployment. Jerry has to go to the dentist but Joe wants to multiply their money with the investment in the bet of a 100% winner of a dog race. They see Mulligan’s police badge and pack their instruments. Just at the raid of the police they run out of the building. The police arrests everybody, Mulligan Spats Colombo and his gang. Against Jerry’s protest Joe gets some money from Sam the Bookie for their overcoats but they loose everything on that bet. Freezing in cold Chicago they run in the building with some music agents.

Step: Joe and Jerry loose all, are broke and freeze in winter cold Chicago.

 

3   (7-8): No agent has a job for them. Angry Nelly, secretary of agent Poliakoff and stood up by Joe, tell them that her boss is looking for a bass and a sax for a three weeks job in warm Florida.

Step: The hope to get a well paid job in warm Florida.

 

4   (9): Mr. Bienstock and Sweet Sue are looking desperatly a bass and a sax for their girl’s band. Poliakoff is calling around with no success. The managers leave Poliakoff just when Joe and Jerry sneak in his office. They learn that they should be girls to get that job. Jerry is even ready to dress like a woman, they could be Josephine and Geraldine but Joe refuses to such a crazy idea.

Step: The only real good job is only for women.

 

5   (10-11): Poliakoff offers them a one night job at the St. Valentine’s dance at the university of Illinois which is a 100 miles from Chicago. Joe accepts and seduces Nelly until she agrees to give them her car for the trip.

Step: They borrow a car which is parked in Charlie’s Garage.

 

6   (12): Toothpick Charlie and his gangster collegues are playing pocker. Joe and Jerry are looking for Nellie Weinmeyer’s car and ask for filling the gas tank on her cost. A car is suddenly driving very fast in the garage. Toothpick Charlie and his fellows are killed by Spats Colombo and his gang. Spats wants to kill Joe and Jerry, too. But heavy wounded Toothpick Charlie catches the phone and call the police. He is killed by Spats just when Joe and Jerry run away. The police is approaching and Spats orders to get away and to take care of the two musicians later.

Step:  Joe and Jerry became witnesses of the Valentine’s Day Massacre.

 

7   (13-14): Joe and Jerry are frightened to death. These gangsters know how they look like. They shot even some holes in Jerry’s Bass-Fiddle. Imitating a woman’s voice Joe calls Poliakoff and confirms their agreement for the Florida job in the girl’s band.

Step: Joe and Jerry have to change their identity and have to get away from Chicago.

 

8   (15): Standing on the railway plateform they study how women move and Jerry wonders how they could walk on high heels. They have doubts to pass like women. Joe introduces himself to Bienstock and Sweet Sue as Josephine and Jerry chooses suddenly Daphne as his new name. They get a two bed compartment on two levels.

Step: Joe and Jerry become girl musicians and are going to Florida with a lot of real girls.

 

9   (16-17): Between all these pretty women Jerry (Daphne) feels like to be in paradise. Joe (Josephine) stopps him violantly and Jerry’s “breast” tores off. At the toilet they meet Sugar Cane (Sugar Kowalczyk) drinking Whiskey. She feels like a looser and is escaping something. Jerry falls in love with her and Joe stopps him again.

Step: Joe and Jerry meet the flabbergasting Sugar Cane and her Ukulele.

 

10 (18-19): The band plays with the new musicians in the train. During Sugar’s solo suddenly a flask falls down to floor. Sweet Sue and Bienstock want to get rid of her at the next station but Jerry (Daphne) asks completly naiv for getting back his flask. Joe and Jerry learn that Sweet Sue does not allow booze and men in this band. Sugar is delighted about Jerry’s (Daphne) help and offers him (her) her nicest smile.

Step: They play with the band and Jerry helps Sugar to stay.

 

11 (20-22): Jerry (Daphne) cannot stopp to watch all these pretty girls preparing for bed. Joe (Josephine) takes the stairs away and tells him that he is a girl.

Step: Jerry have to learn that he is a girl.

 

12 (23): Sugar visits Jerry (Daphne) in his compartment and is thanking him for his help. Jerry is nearly cracking between his lust and his duty. When he is ready to reveal his true identity it is again Joe who stopps him. Joe is taken to the toilet by Suger who is crushing the ice cube in small pieces for the Manhattan cocktails.

Step: Jerry wants to reveal his identity but is stopped to do so by the other girls and by Joe.

 

13 (24): Josephine (Joe) learn that Sugar is escaping men’s bands because she is addicted to saxophone players. She is happy that Josephine is a girl-sax. In Florida she wants to get a millionaire with thick glasses.

Step: Joe falls in love with Sugar, gets to know one of her secrets and about her goal in Florida.

 

14 (25-28): The party in Jerry’s (Daphne’s) compartment becomes wilder and wilder. Jerry gets a strong hiccup and when even his bosoms have torn lose he pulls the emergency cord. The girls fall out of his compartment and in the toilet Sugar on Josephine (Joe).

Step: Before everything gets out of control, Jerry pulls the emergency cord.

 

15 (29-32): Jerry tells Sweet Sue and Bienstock that he had a nightmare. Sugar and Joe  switches their compartment. She could not sleep because of Bienstock’s snoring. Jerry creeps to Sugar’s compartment and tells her in the dark that he is a boy. Joe grabs him and shakes him heavily. Jerry hopes that Joe does not beat women.

Step: Joe prevents Jerry to reveal their identity.

 

16 (33-34): Jerry (Daphne) offers to carry Sugar’s Ukulele and gets in addition also Joe’s (Josephine) Sax. The millionaires are sitting in a row on the terrace of the hotel. The first in the row, Osgood Fielding III, helps the full packed Jerry (Daphne) and gets now everything to carry. When he does not behave in the elevator he is thrown out and slapped by Jerry (Daphne).

Step: Joe enters the hotel with Sugar and Jerry/Daphne is the chosen one for millionaire Osgood.

 

17 (35-36): Joe/Josephine and Jerry/Daphne make their first experiences with men seducing them. Jerry/Daphne wants to have Sugar Cane.

 

18 (37): Joe, wearing Bienstock’s fantasy uniform of a captain and the thick glasses, impresses Sugar at the beach pretending to be Shell Junior. Jerry/Daphne cannot believe it and gets angry.

 

19 (38-47): Jealous Jerry/Daphne tries to prouve Sugar that Joe is a cheat but he fails.

 

20 (41-47): Joe convinces Jerry to help him getting Sugar for a night on Osgood’s yacht whilst Jerry/Daphne should keep the millionaire ashore.

 

21 (48-52): Joe/Shell-Junior and Sugar are driving to Osgood’s yacht, Jerry/Daphne and Osgood stays ashore.

 

22 (53-55): Joe/Shell-Junior is showing the yacht to Suga. He is making a lot of mistakes but she does not want to see it. She is an active part in the game.

 

23 (56+58+60+62-64): Joe, pretending to be a “sick” Shell Junior, gets a lot of deep kisses from Sugar in order to fight his lack of emotions.

 

24 (57+59+61): Jerry/Daphne is dancing the whole night with Osgood who falls in love with her/him.

 

25 (65): Jerry/Daphne explains Joe in the hotel room that Osgood proposed to her. He/she shows Joe the gift which turns out to be with real diamonds.

 

26 (65): In the same hotel room Sugar tells the two colleagues that she has fallen in love with Shell-Junior. She thinks that he will marry her. As Daphne will get the “real” millionaire Osgood, Sugar is convinced that Josephine will also find one.

 

27 (66): Spats Colombo and his gang is arriving at the hotel lobby. Jerry/Daphne sneaks them out through his/her mirror. In this hotel will take ülace the congress of the Friends of the Italian Opera.

 

28 (67): In the elevator the gangsters are interested in Josephine and Daphne. They think having seen them elsewhere.

 

29 (68-69): Joe and Jerry are in panic. They pack and want to escape. Joe wants to say Goodbye to Sugar and offers her Osgood’s bracelet with the diamonds.

 

30 (70-82): Joe says Goodbye to Sugar on the phone and tells her a story about a marrige he has to accept for business reasons.

 

31 (83): Jerry finds out that Joe as Shell Junior has missused the bracelet as the Goodbye gift to Sugar. He is angry. They climb down the fassade of the hotel in jumping from one balcony to the other.

 

32 (84): Spats wants to kill the head of the Friends of the Italian Opera association. Suddenly, he spots the two musicians climbing down the balcony. They find out that these are the same ones like in Chicago.

 

33 (85-88): After a wild chase Joe and Jerry ends up hiding under a table of the big room prepared for the meeting of the Friends of the Italian Opera.

 

34 (89-90): Joe and Jerry witnesses the killing of Spats and his gang.

 

35 (91): Joe and Jerry need Osgood’s yacht for escaping the gangsters.

 

36 (92): Before leaving the hotel Joe is listening to a sad song of Sugar. He kisses her and proves her his love in outing him to her whilst Jerry is calling Osgood.

 

37 (93): Joe and Jerry escape hidden at the ambulance stretcher which is carring the dead body of Spats.

 

38 (94): Osgood wants to have Daphne/Jerry as his bride, Josephine/Joe as bridesmaid and Sugar as the Flower Girl.

 

39 (95): Joe tells Sugar that he is the wrong man for her and that he is a saxophone player. But she loves him.

 

40 (95): Daphne/Jerry tries to convince Osgood that they cannot get married but the millionaire is accepting no excuse even not the fact that Jerry is a man: Nobody is perfect!