Some Like it Hot (1959) / Maker's Mark 46 Bourbon

0:00 In 1959, director Billy Wilder and star Marilyn Monroe gave the world a cross dressing comedy that hits all the right notes. In 2023, Maker's Mark proves that the 46th time is the charm the. Film is some like it hot. The whiskey is Maker's Mark 46. And we'll review them both. This is the. Film and whiskey. Podcast. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast, where each week we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob Book.

0:50 I'm Brad G. And this week we are revisiting one of our favorite movies from Season 1, Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot. Bob I was thinking about this movie it like before we we watched it again and I was like, I think I could watch this movie just the soundtrack, like I could blindfold myself, listen to the movie and it still might be one of the funniest comedies I've ever heard. Do you know what's hilarious about you saying that is? I took a note as I was watching this because the movie is set in 1929, so right after the advent of sound in movies.

1:30 And it's really apparent that Billy Wilder is doing a lot to honor the early 30s screwball comedies, but he's also doing a lot to honor like the late silent era comedies. There's a lot of really physical comedy in this and the note that I took was I could watch this movie with the sound off and still understand what's going on. So you'll. Watch it with the sound off. Yeah, I'll watch it with my monitor turned off and we'll report back on what the experience exactly. That's hilarious. Man. All right, so if you are not familiar, what we're doing this season on film and whiskey is we're going back and revisiting all of our movies from Season 1. Brad, we're doing it mostly, yeah. Those episodes a real bad.

2:15 I would say that the sound quality gets marginally better in the latter half of Season 1. But I was listening to some of these episodes back and it is like unbearably harsh sounding. Yeah. And we just didn't have our, we didn't have our feet wet yet in the podcasting arena. So I think we've got a little bit more seasoned since then. A little bit. I mean, I mean, at this point we're talking about watching movies without actually watching the movie, so. We're so good at it, we don't even need the pictures anymore. We're pretty avant-garde about our movie watching nowadays. All right, so as I remember from Season 1 and Brad, I don't currently have our final scores from our first watch through pulled up.

2:58 I think I gave this movie like I either A9 or a nine and a half, and I had talked even at that point about how it was not my favorite Billy Wilder movie and it wasn't as good as the apartment and blah, blah, blah. And you know what? I still stand by a lot of what I remember saying about this movie, which is it's really hard to give a really dumb, stupid, silly comedy a 10 out of 10. But damn it if this movie isn't just perfect Brad. It it is perfectly written, perfectly acted perfectly like the sound design is perfect. I I love this movie Bob. I think I gave it A10 it it might have been one of my first 10s that I ever handed out.

3:43 Bob I This is a 10 out of 10 movie. I laughed out loud at so many parts of this movie. And you know, I remember when we were watching through Sabrina, which is another Billy Wilder movie that I talked about how in Sabrina you can go into that wanting any kind of comedy and you will get it from that movie. There's really dark humor, there's sarcasm, there's slapstick. That's all here as well. And I feel like it is. It reaches like it's pinnacle with this movie. I like, I couldn't believe the amount of silent era slapstick comedy. And then, you know, you juxtapose that with the really fast kind of ratatat of screwball comedies from the 30s. And then you get your like, really racy, boundary pushing comedy that reminds you that this movie is made in the late 1950s.

4:29 It's just like it. It's the platonic ideal of a silly comedy, and it works so well. Yeah, and at the top you have Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Jack Lemmon, one of the best comedic actors of all time. I mean, for my money, one of the best dramatic actors of all time too. He's just fantastic. Yeah, no, he's absolutely incredible. Now you tell me. I don't know as much about Mr. Curtis on the other half there. Was he a comedic actor? Was he more of a dramatic actor? He was more of a dramatic actor that dabbled in comedies. So the year before this was made, he made a movie called The Defiant Ones with Sidney Poitier. And that movie was like a straight drama, and it was about, you know, race relations and really great movie. But Tony Curtis was kind of always going for his Oscar. And I feel like every once in a while he'd make a movie like this.

5:21 And it's just hilarious that now this is the movie that he's best remembered for. You know, if if you know anything about Tony Curtis, it's probably because either you've seen this movie or you are familiar with his daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. That's that's pretty much the only things that I feel like people talk about Tony Curtis for anymore. But man, is he good in this movie or what? He, he is so incredible. I'll, I'll just remind everybody of the fun fact that when he plays the shell junior, you know, billionaire, he's, he's trying to be Cary Grant or, you know, use his accent to make fun of Cary Grant. And when he asked Cary Grant how what he thought of the accent because he sounded like Cary Grant, Cary Grant's response was I do not sound like that.

6:08 You know, The funny thing, and I, I don't think we mentioned this the first go round with this movie, but as I'm listening to him do the Cary Grant thing, it's such a funny little joke. It's like a running bit obviously in the movie. But Cary Grant was not famous in Hollywood at the time that this movie is set. And so then you get that great little line from Jack Lemmon where he goes, nobody sounds like that. And of course, it's it's the voice that belongs to the most famous person in Hollywood by 1959. When when did Cary like break into Hollywood? Was it early 40s? You know, it was like early 30s, like he was one of his first big movies was I think it's called She Done Him Wrong. It's a Mae West movie. But I mean, like, you know, somewhere between 31 and 33, I think, is when Cary Grant really started to get introduced to American audiences.

6:54 OK, yeah, IA Cary Grant's incredible. We need to watch more Cary Grant movies. But B Lemon and Curtis are great. I think we talked about it. Monroe in this movie is just electric. Yeah, honestly, Brad, I think we need to like introduce some structure into our episode here or we're just going to gush over people for 50 something minutes and then call it a day. If you have not seen some Like It Hot, first of all, you got to watch it. It's just it's a hilarious movie. But I have to say, Brad, you know, we've watched at least 6 or 7 Billy Wilder movies at this point for the podcast, including this one the first time. I think I have more of an appreciation for it now on the other side of all those Billy Wilder movies than I did when we first watched it in Season 1.

7:41 Yeah, 100% that we dabbled in in, it feels like we've dabbled in him, but now that we've gotten 6 movies under our belt, coming back to this was a bit of a revelation. A We've talked about his obsession with suicide and when we were in back in season seven, right? And, fascinatingly enough, Tony Curtis making jokes about killing himself in this movie. You got to have at least one. It's an obligatory thing with Billy Wilder. It's. It's an obligatory Wilder trip, I suppose. Yeah, coming back to this after watching, you know, six of his films now, this feels like the height of his comedic writing. I think that The Apartment does strike the perfect balance between drama and comedy that not a lot of movies are able to do.

8:35 But this one doesn't attempt to be a drama in any way at all. Like, I guess it it tries to be a ROM com a little bit, but even there I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, there's there's sugar and and Joe kind of falling in love. But this is this is one of the best comedies ever written, Bob. All right, so like I said, if you have not seen some Like It Hot, you got to go watch this movie. But we say that especially because we're going to move into our first segment of the day, which we call Brad explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plots with only 60 seconds sticking on the clock, so let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that we call, Brad explains. Brad Explains is the part of the podcast where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen, often for the first time.

9:20 This is obviously not Brad's first time seeing Some Like It Hot Brad, how do you watch this movie in the interim between the first time we watched it and now? I don't believe I had. I haven't either, and it's hilarious because I I didn't watch it because I had been kind of let down by it in Season 1 and I was like, man, that movie's not as good as I remembered it being. And I'm so glad I waited until now to watch it again because I was an idiot. This movie's. Incredible yeah, dude, I, I well, and we'll keep talking about how incredible it is. Let let's do some, Brad explains. All right, Brad, you have. 60 seconds on the clock to break down the plot of this movie. Once again, this is a spoiler filled discussion of Some Like It Hot, so if you don't want it spoiled for you, go watch the movie and come back to listen to Brad break it all down now Brad, one minute and go. Joe and Jerry are out of luck musicians who are completely out of a job, out of clothes, out of an apartment and in looking for a job.

10:20 The only thing they're able to get is to cross dress as women and join a women's band going down to Florida. The reason they go on this is because they witnessed the Saint Valentine's Day massacre by spats A stand in for Al Capone who's out looking to kill them because he doesn't want to leave any witnesses. They make their way down to Florida, fall in love with Marilyn Monroe and find the trouble hot on their tails. As it comes down to Florida, the the mobsters come down to Florida for a mobsters gathering. Hi Jinx ensue. I I don't even know if that was the end or not. I was like and. That that's about it, man.

11:03 Hi, Jinx, do ensue. All right, man, where would you like to start today? Do you want to start with the Billy Wilder of it all or do you want to start with the performances? I want to start with the Billy Wilder of it all, but before that I want to hear just one of your favorite lines from the film. One of my favorite lines from the film. And and if you if you need a second to think of 1 I I can go first. Oh, please go ahead. When Sugar is talking to the oil Baron Shell Junior, he's talking about water polo. And Sugar says water polo isn't that terribly dangerous. And he goes, I'll say I had two ponies drowned under me. I don't know, man, that whole scene is hilarious. I just love the first time, you know, because he, he has that basket of shells at his feet and he has to improvise with it. And then he's like, after all, that's why we named the oil company.

11:59 The way he just reaches in and pulls the shell up. But when the shell like is a perfect. Shell Oil, Yeah, I think any line that Jack Lemmon has, and like the ones you know, the obvious one is the last line of the film. But everything from the time they first start cross dressing until the end of the movie, the one that I keep thinking of, this is the recurring bit of you tore off one of my chests. Like, Yep, it's a great little bit that they have. We're going to get into all these lines. I've got a ton of them highlighted here, Brad. Yeah, I was just saying I love when they're at Polikoff, Polikoff's office trying to get a job. And he's like, what do you mean you need to be a hunchback or something?

12:41 And he's like, it's not your backs I'm worried about. All right, yeah, Let's start with the Billy Wilder of it all then, because like you said, this is I think Wilder at his best with just straight comedy and once again, really pushing the boundaries and really pushing the envelope of what you could get away with in movies like this. There's a obviously, I mean, it's a movie about cross dressing. There's just so much sex in this movie, that is, that is implied through the dialogue and. Quite, quite salacious. Quite salacious, but it's hilarious and even like one of the first scenes that Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe have together when they're on the train and they go into like one of the bathrooms with the block of ice. And she's talking about like what the tenor sax does to her. And she says, like, all you have to do is play 8 bars of Come to me, my melancholy baby.

13:37 And I come to them. And then it cuts back to Tony Curtis. Like, like you do what? No, it's just, I can't believe they got away with some of it, but it's so good. The indie went in this movie are just like second to none man. Yeah, they they are over the top. And I mean, it did. Did Wilder have like 17 affairs? Is that like where this movie sprung from? I don't know man. 'Cause I like, they're for a movie in the 1950s and I know it's, you know, it's 1959, but for a movie from the 50s, Bob, this thing is raunchy. Like, really?

14:17 Raunchy. 2020 standards, you know, not not so much, but it even watching it now you're like, oh man, how did they get away with this? I don't know if I can go any longer, and I know like we're still in the Billy Wilder discussion, but I don't know if I can go any longer without talking about Jack Lemmon. So Jack Lemmon gets nominated for an Oscar for this movie and it's well deserved. And the thing about Lemmons performance that I think is so revelatory is that it's the it's the performance that calls the most attention to itself. And so you kind of expect to hold that against it. Like, you know, Brad, you and I really like the show How I Met Your Mother.

14:57 And I think that like it's, it's amazing what Neil Patrick Harris is able to do as Barney. But there's also episodes where it's like, this is too much Barney. This is like, it's a character that is a caricature, and I think that Lemon's character is always running the risk of becoming that. But there were entire scenes last night. Because I've seen this movie so many Times Now I know what's coming that I just watched Jack Lemmon in the background of a scene or like in a scene where it's all three of the leads and he's the one that's like kind of in the back reacting to everybody else. That dude is on all the time. It's like it's not just when he's making goofy faces and being like the prototype for what Jim Carrey would become. It's just that he is wholly invested as an actor in everything that's going on around him. And I say all that to say, there are so many lines that I'm like, literally, I have the Billy Wilder script pulled up in front of me and they're really funny lines on the page, but only in the mouth of Jack Lemmon do they become classics. Do you know what I mean?

16:05 No, 100%, dude, I honestly, I never thought about the Jack Lemmon leading into Jim Carrey. Like all I can think about is Jim Carrey and like liar, liar or Bruce Almighty. Like that's, that's incredible. He. Yeah. But see, here's The thing is like, if if you don't get, and I know you hate Eternal Sunshine, but like if you just tell Jim Carrey to dress and drag and go wild, then you get the moments where Jack Lemmon's going over the top. But the great thing about this Jack Lemmon performance is that he also can be really subdued at times. And it's like, that's the brilliance of this performance is that it spans the entire spectrum. Yeah, 100% the the same way he does in the apartment, right? Exactly.

16:48 I, I think, I think here, though, what I love about Jack Lemmon is when, you know, the production quandaries that Wilder was facing working with Marilyn Monroe. Like that could have been the 37th take and Jack Lemmon is still giving it his all. 100%. You know what I mean? And I think that's what impresses me so much about his performance is that he was so professional that he's like going balls to the wall on every single take. That so there's a scene in particular and we talked about this in our season 1 review of this movie. We, I think we actually went a little too heavy on like the Marilyn Monroe troubled history thing in Season 1, even though I feel like we were very sympathetic.

17:35 But there's so much more to talk about with this movie. But the very famous scene that was so complicated for them to shoot was the one after Shell Oil Junior breaks up with her and she comes in the room and just says, where's the bourbon? Where's that bourbon is the line? She could not get the line. Where's that bourbon correct? They had to do like 100 takes of it. And you're absolutely right, man. Like the they cut back to Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and watching him and if you know what his character is going through in the moment, he's mad that Tony Curtis has just given his diamond bracelet away to Marilyn Monroe. And so watching the frustration on his face and whether the frustration that he had with the scene is spilling into that, I have no idea. But like, for him to be putting that much effort into basically being set dressing in that scene, it's incredible. Like I, I can't imagine how physically exhausting the performance had to be because like we've been saying, he's just on all the time.

18:37 Yeah, I, I feel like we need to do just a series of Jack Lemmon films. Oh, I'd love that. Like I I would so enjoy just going through some of his work because we've only seen the apartment and some like it hot. I don't know if we've done another Jack Lemmon movie, no. Yeah, we need to get on it, absolutely. All right, man. Well, let's talk about the other two leads. I mean, we've, we've dabbled in Billy Wilder a little bit. Let's talk Tony Curtis. I mean, what are your impressions of him? Because if we've only ever done 2 Jack Lemmon movies, I hate to say it, but we've only done this one for Tony Curtis. So having seen this same performance 2 Times Now, what do you make of it? Yeah, I think that Tony Curtis is exactly what this movie needs.

19:23 Opposite Jack Lemmon. Like he, like he plays that perfect, powerful woman that we, even though he's not a woman that like you need next to the silliness of Daphne, you know, played by Jack Lemmon. And so I, I think that Tony Curtis brings a lot to the role and I think that he brings a, a level of professionalism alongside Jack Lemmon that I, he, I, I think he does a really great job of corralling things and moving them along well. I think one of the things that really struck me watching this movie this time through is the physicality of both of these two male leads.

20:08 Because Jack Lemmon is very much doing it almost kind of reminds me of Singing in the Rain. And you've got Gene Kelly doing his thing, and then you've got Donald O'Connor who's doing like the the pratfalls and make him laugh. And they're both these very fluid dancers. And I feel like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are pretty much like spot on replicas of that because Jack Lemmon is doing a lot of the hilarious, you know, vaudevillian kind of physicality with the tangos and everything else. But then you watch Tony Curtis and he's like scaling a building and sliding down banisters. And it's almost not. You don't even really think about how athletic the guy is, but he uses it so fluidly to his advantage in this movie.

20:49 And it really helps because he's the character that's having to do more quick changes than anybody else. Like he's dressed as a woman and then he has to be dressed as Shell Oil Junior. And you get the little gag where he's still wearing the earrings and it he's so perfectly flows in and out of all of the three different characters he's playing in this movie, I was really impressed with his performance. And can we talk about for a second how beautifully Wilder sets up the geography of the hotel? Like the way he uses them climbing out of the window and going in front of other, you know, rooms. And the gangsters are in the one room. And it's like they do it enough times that you, the viewer, feel like you could climb the roof and get up to Daphne and. And Geraldine.

21:35 Geraldine. No, that's what he's supposed to. Josephine, thank you. And Josephine's room, Wilder just does such a beautiful job there, and it's something that you don't really think about as you're watching it. Yeah, I think Wilder at this point of his career really knows how to milk the the shot selection and and the way the camera moves and the editing of this movie. I'm thinking all the way back to the first scene of the movie, like the the establishing moments of the movie are a hearse driving through Chicago that begins getting chased by a cop car. And then you find out that the hearse is being driven by some CD characters because out of nowhere, they pull some Tommy guns out and they're, you know, shooting machine guns at the cops. And it's this shootout in the streets and they cut back to the hearse and the coffin in the hearse is just like leaking liquid.

22:24 And you're like, oh, that's gross. Because at that point, as an audience member, you're still thinking this is an embalmed body. And the, the great visual gag is they lift the lid up off of the, the coffin, the casket, and it's smuggling a whole bunch of booze. And that's when you get the title card that says Chicago 1929. And you understand, like, oh, it's the end of prohibition. It is. It's such a great reveal because until that point, like I'm sure, yes, these vehicles looked old to people in 1959. But you know, you don't necessarily know exactly when the movie set until that big reveal and he reveals it on a gag. Every single thing that he does in this movie is a fantastic punchline. It's all billed and then the relief, the release of a punchline.

23:09 Yeah, and even the, the opening, I don't know, 10 minutes of the movie don't really have much of Curtis and Lemon, but the the whole scene of the police chief, you know, being briefed on how to get in and ordering, you know, liquor. And they're like, we only sell coffee here. We got we have 80 proof coffee and and gin coffee. It's just every little piece of this movie is funny and, and, and not just a little bit funny. Like I'm laughing every two or three minutes in this film. I was shocked at how much I laughed out loud at this movie because again, I've seen it so many times that I know all the lines now.

23:51 And so for this time around, it was more like the line readings. And then it was the little physical moments in between lines. It was like, you know when they're on the train and they're first practicing as a band? Yes. And Sweet Sue, the conductor, tells the two of them to, like, pick it up and spice it up a little bit. And they cut back. And Jack Lemmon on that stupid bull fiddled. He's just going. It is the funniest. It's such a stupid movie, Brad. Like nothing about this should work. It is an absolutely ridiculous premise that Billy Wilder and everyone involved knows is ridiculous. And that's why it's funny.

24:32 Yeah, no, they, I mean to, to quote one of the best comedies of all time, they easily just everybody turns it up to 11, like every performance, every bit of cinematography, every bit of sound design. I man, we let's, let's treat this makers 46 Bob and then we'll come back to just spouting its praise even more effusively. All right, let's do it, Brad. All right, everybody. So today we are checking out Maker's Mark 46. This is a bourbon, Brad, that I did not realize when we first drank it back in 2019 that had only been released in 2010. So like, you know, obviously it had been around for almost a decade by the time we tried it.

25:17 But I just, I guess I just assumed that this brand was much, much older than that, you know, or this label in particular. So this is Maker's Mark bourbon, which is one of the, you know, if not the world's best selling weeded bourbon. And when we talk about weeded bourbon, what that means is that after corn, which is the dominant grain in bourbon, the next most used grain is wheat. And typically this gives it a softer nose. It's not as spicy or aggressive as rye tends to be. Brad and I will always get notes like cherry on weeded bourbons. And honestly, Brad, I think if I'm being frank, you know, even after drinking as many whiskeys as we have, I think weeded bourbon is probably still my favorite kind of bourbon.

25:57 Yeah, weeded bourbon consistently has just such a nice flavor profile. And I'll be honest with you, Man Makers 46 is falling right in line with that. Yeah, I mean, before we dive into the nose and everything else, I'm reading directly off of the website of Breaking Bourbon. We've plugged them before. But the thing I like to do with some of these bourbon websites, Brad, is like, we're not competing with Breaking Bourbon. They do a completely different thing than we do. And it's super helpful because we get a lot of our information about the process of how these things are made from Breaking Bourbon. And so in their review of Makers 46, they break the process down like this. Maker's 46 starts off as standard Maker's Mark, which they say is a weeded bourbon made in batches of less than 1000 gallons. And then 10 heavily seared French oak staves are placed into the just emptied Maker's Mark barrels, which are then refilled and returned to the warehouses to finish aging for an undisclosed amount of time, estimated to be two to three additional months.

26:59 So they stick a bunch more wood in there and it's super heavily charred to give it some more flavor. And Brad, I got to be honest, man, I think it just in terms of looking at the color of it, it seems to be working. Are you trying to channel your inner Billy Wilder and and use the most sexual innuendo you can They. Stick a bunch more wood in there. Just stick it right in. The color. I'm talking about the color, Brad. Come on. Oh, I'm, I'm so sorry. So sorry. Yeah, the color is gorgeous. Like it's, it's just this really like nice ambery walnut looking. It's beautiful, Bob. Big fan of this whiskey.

27:40 I like that you just use like 8 different shades. Yeah, you know, it's it's. Oak. And it's mahogany and it's walnut and it's Maple and you know. All that it's Cherry. All right, Brad, I am trying this live on air. I will be frank with you when I say I have not tried Makers 46 since our first recording of Some Like It Hot. Like 17 years ago. A million years ago. I know you've tried it again already, so I'm going to let you give your nosing notes first while I take mine. Yeah, Bob, this is genuinely an incredible nose for me. I got like the first note I took and it it morphed after a little bit. But the first thing I said was grape drink like that. Like this is not grape juice.

28:26 It is grape drink. From there, I got some amaretto. There's vanilla coming through it. It almost turned into like like one of those fudge bars you eat as a kid. And then after I let it sit in the glass for a while, some brown sugar notes really started coming through with a a decent amount of like a nutmeg spice. I think this is an incredible, really nice, sweet and yet a little bit complex nose that I gave a nine out of 10 to. Wow. All right. So I will say this, I'm slightly lower than you on the nose and it's because I poured this out right when we started this segment that we're recording right now. And so it's been between 5 and 10 minutes.

29:07 It is just now starting to settle down in the glass. And what I noticed as I look at breaking bourbons, you know, data about this is that the mash bill is 70% corn, 16% wheat, 14% barley. And so the barley is almost, as, you know, equivalent to the wheat in this. And at first I was like, this smells a little bit more aggressive than I thought it would be. And it had a a very distinct scent to it. And I think the barley made itself known right off the bat, but as it settles down, it is settling into that nice weeded bourbon. This one almost has like a chocolatey kind of smell to me, which is not something I'm typically used to getting on weeded bourbon.

29:47 But then it settles down into like this beautiful Coca-Cola effervescence with a ton of caramel and cherry underneath it. It's it's almost like a sundae, Brad. I just imagine like a caramel sundae with a big fake ass red maraschino cherry on top of it. It it's just beautiful. As the I don't remember if it's Marilyn or just one of the other girls in the band. They wake up Tony Curtis ago. Maraschino. You got a Maraschino cherry on you. So yeah, I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10 on the nose. I'm excited to see where this goes. Yeah, on the palate, I got a a nice bit of cherry cola that came through like you said, you're talking about those cola notes on the nose, a ton of caramel on the palate.

30:35 And then the longer I drank it, the more I got like a really flaky buttered croissant and I absolutely loved it. I ended up giving it an 8 1/2 out of 10 on the palate. I'm. Going to tell you right up front, I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10 on the palate. And I think Brad, that if I can knock this on anything, I don't think they should use this much barley in the mash bill. Like I am getting some really heavily ashy notes on this that I get from especially from American made malt whiskey. Like, you know, we've, we've had some Kraft whiskeys that are like American single malt that they have that almost like cigarette ash thing going on. And I can't tell if it's the the influence of these French oak staves or if it's the barley in the mash bill. But I really do think at 14%, this has a little bit more barley in it that I would like to see. And it almost competes with the fantastic corn and wheat notes. You know, we tried Maker's cask strength a couple seasons back, Brad, and that was like one of my highest rated whiskey's I've ever had.

31:42 It is like for me, it's like the platonic ideal of this. And I think that it, you know, I'm assuming it has the same mash bill as this, but it doesn't have that extra aged, you know, oak staves in it. So I think the cavo of those staves with the barley is tipping this just a little bit more bitter and ashy than I would like, but I'm still going to give it an 8 out of 10. Bob, you just spent 80% of the time talking about why you took two points off versus the 20% of the time of why you gave it eight points. Yep. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast. Brad, where have you been for ten seasons? I don't know man, the finish here has a lot of charred oak, which is unsurprising for the amount of wood that they just shoved into this barrel.

32:32 I was going to say, you don't say. But it's also got some nice butter toffee, some nice cherry cola that sticks around. And then for me, I honestly, the the note that lingered longest was just a really nice simple vanilla. So I give it an 8 out of 10 on the finish. You know, I kind of came down from the nose to the taste of the finish, but coming down from a nine to an 8. This is a daggone good whiskey, Bob. Yeah, I'm really struggling, Brad, because I don't think this is a bad finish. I just don't think that it's like for me, and I want to give it a 6 1/2. I think it's better than a 6 1/2. But all of those things I said about the taste carry through to the finish that the the influence of the barley and of that heavily charred oak is really taking this in a almost bitter place for me on the finish. I'm going to give it a 7 out of 10, but I think you have to have a very specific kind of flavor wheelhouse that you like to operate in to dig this finish.

33:32 Oh yeah, like like a good palette. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, Good, Good, good, good, good. The balance here is incredible. I I think that there's really nice flavors throughout the experience. There's just enough spiciness to give it a little bit of complexity. I gave it a nine out of 10 on balance, Bob. Wow. Yeah, I am definitely not that high. I don't like this nearly as much as you do, Brad. And if our scores so far don't indicate it, I think this one will. This is a pretty well balanced whiskey. I just think that I like the regular Makers a little bit better than this and especially the cask strength version. I'll give this a 7 out of 10 on balance. Yeah. And at the time of recording, this is costing you in this, the beautiful state of Ohio, $37. 37, OK, that's an interesting Bryce point because you know at like 35 and it's at 94 proof.

34:27 And when I hear 94 proof, I always think Elijah Craig, that's like that's the one I know that's 94 proof and that's always been about $35 a bottle. So I think it makes sense for it to be 37 because it has an extra aging to go along with it. All that extra wood in there. All that wood and those three extra months, man. I don't think 37 is a bad value but I also don't love this whiskey so like I'll give it a 6.5 on value. I think it's an 8 1/2, Bob. Like I think that this is a really solid weeded whiskey that has a little bit of something extra added in with the the French oak staves. To me, you know, if you're getting this for under $40, I think that that's kind of a steal. So yeah, this is easily an 8 1/2 for me. What's that bringing her final score out to Brad? Bob, I am at a 43 out of 50.

35:26 Oh. My gosh, a 43. I'm a big fan here. Wow. Clearly. And you're the you're the one who likes We did whiskeys. Here's The funny thing, Like I don't feel like I like this whiskey that much and I'm still coming out to a 36 1/2, which says quite a bit, you know, like if you take the worst possible conclusion on this and it's still in the range that we would be recommending it, I think that says that this is a darn good whiskey. It does not appeal to my palate that much at all. And I'm still coming out to a 36 1/2. That's bringing us to a 79.5 out of 100 or a 39.75 out of 50. It's very, very close to breaking that 40 mark, which is rarefied air on the Film and Whiskey podcast.

36:10 Yeah. Oh, actually I gave it a nine out of 10 on value, so that puts me at a 43.5 I'm. Pretty sure we're at a 40 out. We're at a 40. We were just talking about this before we pressed record, but can you share the score that we initially gave this way back in Season 1? Bro we didn't. We were so harsh with the whiskey. I gave it and and remember that back in season 1 we didn't have the value category so we are scoring them out of 40. I gave it a 17 out of 40 and you gave it a 22 out of 40. Yeah, I feel like if we just didn't love something, we were like, ah, yeah, this is a 5 or below on each category.

36:51 Yeah, which I'm looking forward to our re review of Basil Hayden's one of these days because I don't know where that's going to land, but. It'll just be fun to trash that as well. We trashed it then, we'll trash it now. So fair to say Makers 46 has been redeemed in the eyes of the Film and Whiskey podcast. Yeah, 100%. All right, man, let's get back into talking about some Like It Hot. What do you say? Yeah, let's get to it. All right, everybody. That was Makers 46. A whiskey that will easily go down in the annals of film and whiskey. Podcast is one of the best whiskey's ever made. Yeah, Brad, it's certainly going down in your annals as one of the best ever made.

37:34 But honestly, a really good whiskey. Like not many notes on that one. Yeah, no, great whiskey and one that I'm once again, I am so happy that we're revisiting Season 1, Bob. Oh my gosh. For so many reasons. Yeah, one of the reasons being which we never did. 2 facts and a falsehood back then. We did not have two facts and a falsehood. And so, Brad, you know what time it is now. Time for canvas favorite segment, Brad. Is going to try to stump you Ball you are right and what is wrong? 2 facts and a falsehood. That's right, 2 facts and a falsehood.

38:14 This is the part of the podcast where Brad presents three items to me as fact about the making of this movie, one of which is a complete fabrication and lie. And I have to decide which one is the falsehood. Brad, it's been a long time since we've looked at any research about sub like it hot. It's been 99 seasons, so you're catching me in the midst of a cold streak here. So go ahead and hit me with your two facts and a falsehood. Fact #1 Jack Lemmon nearly broke his wrist during a take on the train when he falls out of the bunk, but was told by Wilder that Monroe had taken up enough of their time that he couldn't afford to miss any time for Lemon. Fact number Two years after the film's release, a movie reviewer was talking to Tony Curtis about Josephine and that's why he was so much more feminine than Jack Lemmon's Daphne. Curtis explained that he was so scared to be playing a woman or a man pretending to be one that is tightly wound body language could be read as demure and shy, traditionally feminine traits. Whereas Lemon, who was completely unbothered and quote, ran out of his dressing room screaming like the Queen of May, kept much more of his masculine body language. Facts #3 A male cabaret dancer named Barbette tried to teach Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon to walk in heels. After about a week, Lemmon declined his help, saying he didn't want to walk like a woman, but like a man trying to walk like a woman.

39:45 I feel like I remember fact #3 from our first episode on this, Brad. I like I, I feel like I remember that. The other two, I have no idea #2 sounds plausible and so does #1 I mean, Marilyn Monroe did eat up everyone's time on this movie. I'm going to say that number one is the falsehood. Bob, you are 100% correct. Hey, number one was the falsehood. Man, that was that was really a toss up I like. I almost went with too, but but I really love that story about Tony Curtis.

40:25 That's that's pretty great because I think part of the reason this movie works is that they're not playing the same type of character. Like, yes, even when they're in drag, one of them has to be a little more composed. One of them, like Jack Lemmon is clearly trying to sleep with Marilyn Monroe as a woman. Like he doesn't even care at that point. And I think that's the great thing about it is that he, like his horniness, just overrides the fact that he's now supposed to be a woman. And and Tony Curtis is the one that's constantly having to rein him back in. And it's only when Tony Curtis starts dressing like a different kind of man that Jack Lemmon then has to try to rein him back in. It's a great I just the dynamic between those two guys is pitch perfect. And that's the only reason this movie works. Well, in the back and forth that they have, like from the very start, they set up Jack Lemmon to be the responsible one, right?

41:17 Like he wants to fix his messed up tooth and Tony Curtis wants to go spend it on the ponies. And then they, they just slowly, like, vacillate back and forth between who's the responsible one and who's being the ridiculous one. And it, it just works. Like, I don't know if there's any characters that could be tossed to and fro this way and still be legible by the end of the movie. And yet somehow these two actors make it work. We have not really talked about Marilyn Monroe's at this point. I think she's fantastic in this movie. She's she's given kind of a nothing character but the really great thing. And I don't know if if she would have realized it. I don't even know if Billy Wilder would have known it in the moment, but he wrote her such a great tragic character. And his tragic characters are his best characters. Like you can see the direct through line from Sabrina to this character to Fran Kubelik in the apartment the year after this.

42:17 And, and again, we kind of touched on this with one of our other Wilder reviews. I don't know if it was Stalik 17. I think it was Stalik 17 because I was talking about how there's a, a, a scene in that movie where animal thinks that one of his like bunk mates is a woman. And then and then when he gets disappointed, he gets really sad. And I felt like Wilder really should have played up that moment more. And by the time you get to this movie, Wilder is like leaning into that and the the tragedy and the comedy coincide so well. I think part of the reason this movie works on a level that's not just, you know, silly, goofy comedy is that the last few minutes of the movie, Marilyn Monroe is like, I, I don't want to say suicidal because she's not threatening it in this movie, but like, heavily drinking, super sad.

43:06 And then you get the great shot of Tony Curtis, who's trying to flee, wandering into, you know, where the band is performing and she's singing the song I'm through with love. And Wilder just puts the camera on his face and it's a guy in drag unconvincingly. And you are like, emotionally invested in this moment of him having this heartbreaking realization about her. After you've been laughing your butt off the entire movie. Right. And I think like. It comes out of nowhere. And to bring it all back to Marilyn Monroe, I think the the beautiful and the tragic thing about her is that she had such a troubled emotional life that I think she can play that kind of character with so much ease. And I, I almost hate to praise her for it because you can see like the Marilyn Monroe persona and her fighting against it kind of bleeding into this performance, but it makes the performance work so well.

44:04 Yeah, I mean, unfortunately it without meaning to, I'm sure it feels like Marilyn Monroe was method acting here. The the ability to take her off stage, problems on stage and use them for the character. You have to admire the performance that she gives despite all the stuff that she was going through. And it feels like she transforms a lot of that pain and uses it on screen it when she feels like she has been spurned. Yeah. Well, and I think you can also see, you know, Wilder is giving those kind of winking moments just like he does with the Cary Grant quote that I gave earlier. Like when he's talking about no one talks like that, you can tell that he's letting Marilyn Monroe play with the Marilyn Monroe persona a little bit here that, like, everyone thinks she's a dumb blonde, so we're going to pretend like she's a dumb blonde, but she's way smarter than that. But is she way smarter than that? And you can kind of see Monroe, like, winking through that whole thing throughout the movie.

45:07 But even as she's doing that, she's convincingly playing this character I got. I think it really is a great performance that kind of flies under the radar a little bit. Yeah, no, it 100% does it. And we talked about this in Season 1. She's just a magnet for the camera. Like her personality is so bright and so sincere and so bubbly that you can't help but be attracted to her. And, and not just like, like, like the traditional being attracted to someone. Like your eyes are just drawn to her. She just sucks every bit of air out of the room into herself.

45:47 And you can't help but watch her and, and she and she is funny too. Like the way she delivers some of her lines next to Jack Lemmon. Like she is truly a great actress in this film. I mean, and then you just have like the obvious, this is for the fans, but it's also like we're all in on the joke. Like the first time she climbs up into Jack Lemmon's, what do you call it? Not bunk, but it on the train. And she's like, let me rub your feet. There you go. And she's, like, bouncing up and down. And you just see, like, everything's bouncing. And then Jack Lemmon starts doing the I'm a girl. I'm a girl.

46:28 I'm a girl again. It is like, of course they're going to make jokes about Marilyn Monroe's boobs. But, like, I mean, why would you not do that in a movie like this? And the fact that everyone's in on the joke, like, it makes it less, I hate to say it like this. It makes it less creepy. It makes it less icky, you know, 70, almost 70 years on from the making of this movie. Yeah. Yeah, Marilyn is is really incredible in this film. We didn't. We haven't talked about anybody else. Is there anybody else on the acting roster that you were impressed? With, I mean, the obvious one here is Joey Brown, right? Like. Oh yeah. You know The funny thing? I'm looking at the cast of this movie last night as I'm watching it, and I think it's really funny how Monroe and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are all essentially the same age when they make this movie.

47:19 They're all a 3334. And I was really shocked to see that the actress that plays Sweet Sue, her name is Joan Shawley, also 33 years old when she made this movie. And I feel like they made her look like she was 50. So like, you know, poor woman, I'm really sorry for you, but I couldn't believe that she was the same age as everybody else when they made this movie. Yeah, 100%. She looks way, way way older. Before we jump into talking about Joey Brown, who is just incredible in this movie, I want to talk for a second about George Raft, who plays spats, the, you know, the head gangster. There's a ton of Indiana jokes in this movie about George Raft, and he was a really famous actor in the late 30s and 40s.

48:05 And I guess kind of the legend of George Raft is he's known for all of the roles that he turned down in Hollywood. Like I think we mentioned it when we did our Casablanca episode, but he turned down the role that Bogart played in Casablanca. And there's like other other really, I mean like in the five year span, he turned down like 8 classic movies in a row and he just picked terrible. He made terrible choices with that. And it's not like he was making bad movies, but he just missed out on the opportunity to be the guy we remember. And I feel like Bogart owes his career to George Raft in a lot of ways. But there are a ton of references to all of the gangster movies that George Raft made throughout the years. Like when they all sit down at the banquet at the end of the movie and he calls one of his hench men an idiot. He's got a grapefruit in his hand. It's a reference to an early gangster movie called The Public Enemy with Jimmy Cagney.

49:02 And the famous scene in that movie is that he takes a grapefruit and smashes it into his girlfriend's face at at one point. Like there's it's like, it's almost like Sunset Blvd. where Wilder is using the person's career as a visual gag on screen. But it doesn't seem as mean spirited this time around, because again, everyone's in on the joke in this movie. He has a great role in this movie of being the most serious person in the movie, and it allows the movie to have just enough movement to to keep things flowing. I I think that they could get lost in the comedy if not for the driving force of the plot. And I, and I think this is an example of how a plot device can can really help move a movie forward and and not let it just languish in the comedy.

49:52 I want to ask you about that a little bit. Do you think that the movie is successful in the way that it uses that? I don't want to call it a framing device, but it's almost like something has to get them in drag. Something has to keep them in drag. Something has to take them away from whatever the danger is. And so they they concoct this whole story about, you know, the Chicago mob and this guy standing in for Al Capone. But it really kind of bookends the movie. So they show up in drag for the first time at like the 25 minute mark and then the gangsters don't show up until the final 25 to 30 minutes of the movie. And so you've got a solid hour and 10 minutes or whatever in between where we, they, they really don't talk about it at all. It's just, you know, the, the situational comedy of them being women.

50:44 You're trying to be women, but they're really men. Do you think that having the gangster stuff bookending the movie works, or should they have done something different with it? No, I, I think it works perfectly because it gives you enough time throughout the middle of the film to just really have fun with the characters and get to see them be idiots and be funny. And then at the end of the film, it kind of draws things back forward and moves it to a nice tidy conclusion. Like like this movie is like on the .2 hours, you know, probably like an hour and 55 with, you know, credits and stuff. And I think it's like just right for this film.

51:24 If it was any longer, it would drag, but because it's a nice tight two hours and and the the the gangster plot kind of keeps it that way, I I think it works. All right, Brad, I think it is time for us to get to our final segment of the day, which we call let's make it a double. We're near the end of the episodes of Things, listening to the film and Whiskey Show. Let's pair another film with this one. Even if it's struggling. It's the final segment of the day. Now let's make it a double. Let's Make It a Double is the part of the show where we pick a movie to pair up with this one to make the perfect double feature? Brad, what would you pair some Like It Hot with? Man, I have not watched this movie in a very long time so I I might I might be a little out of whack here. It is an older comedy, not not nearly as old as Some Like It Hot, but I remember it having really witty lines and a great duo at the top like Lemon and Curtis. Here I'm going to pair this with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Oh wow, that's a great one man.

52:31 Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's Michael Caine and Steve Martin, and they are two con men that are going after the same mark. And the way that they interact with one another is just brilliant. And it kind of reminded me of of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. I think as I watched this movie, I was once again having an existential crisis about why it's so hard for me to give a movie like this a 10 out of 10. And I feel like the Snooty guy in me is always like, for a movie to be a 10 out of 10, it has to get at something deeper about the human experience and it can't just be silly. But honestly, dude, like, this is as good as a movie like this can get.

53:16 And as I started thinking about it, I was like, I am also too harsh on another movie that we did way back at the beginning of this podcast. And that movie is Anchorman. And I think Anchorman is an almost perfect pairing with this movie because it is about a man who acts like a child who is who is thrust into the world of women that he doesn't know how to comprehend. It plays up the ridiculousness of the costumes of those men. And it allows you to laugh at, you know, a time that has gone by. And I think like, honestly, Anchorman is a spiritual sibling to some Like it Hot in a lot of ways that I didn't really realize until last night. But man oh man, if those aren't 2 absolutely pitch perfect silly comedies.

54:03 Yeah, I mean, honestly, you could watch Some Like It, Hot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Anchorman go from old to new and have an absolutely hilarious evening. Our first triple feature recommendation. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, man. All right, man, let's do final scores. I've been talking about mine the entire podcast, so it will surprise no one. But this is a 10 out of 10, and I don't really know how else to say it, man. Like, it just does not get better than this from a writing standpoint. I mean, we've talked about the lines, we've talked about the visual gags, but just structurally, you know, I saw when this movie was two hours long, I'm like, ah, this might drag a little bit. No, every scene goes on exactly as long as it needs to go on. And there was like no fad on this. And it also didn't get repetitive, which was something I was really worried about was that it was going to try to do the same gag 15 times.

54:53 It doesn't do that at all. It keeps putting its characters in new situations that they have to figure out. It's constantly introducing new complications into the mix that they have to overcome. It is just an absolutely perfect script and it makes for a perfect movie. Yeah, the the same way the mobsters bookended the movie. I'm going to bookend this episode by saying this is a 10 out of 10 movie. Bob, like I, I, I can't tell you how badly you need to go watch some like it hot like if you just need to sit down for two hours and just laugh non-stop. I I can't tell you a better movie to watch.

55:33 Brad, as you think about all the comedies that we've done on the show, so I mean When Harry Met Sally and This Is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride. Monty Python. Monty Python on the Holy Grail would this where would this rank for you among them? Oh wow, I love me someone. Harry met Sally. I think this is my favorite comedy we've ever watched. Wow. I like, I'm trying to think of any other ones I would have given a 10 out of 10 to. I know that we gave Spinal Tap and Monty Python a 10 out of 10, but I don't. I don't know, man, those feel like less of movies than this does. Does that make sense?

56:18 Like those are so far into I don't know, man. I mean, we would we would talk about certain like dramatic movies, like like let's talk about tree of Life. Like tree of life goes so deep into form that you it feels like a different movie than anything else you'd watch. And I feel similarly about Monty Python and Spinal Tap. Like, it goes so deep into the form of weird, serious sketch comedy in a movie that they they they sit on a different realm for me. Where is like some like it Hot is a movie. It's cinematic. Funny. Yeah, it's cinematic. It's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

57:00 Yeah. I think I would put it up there. All right, so it's 10s across the board from us, but we would like to know what you think. Have you seen some like it hot? How does it hold up for you after 6570 years? You can let us know on our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok at Film Whiskey. Or jump onto our Discord. We are on there every single day talking to you guys, the fans of the Film and Whiskey podcast. If you want to join the conversation, there's a link to the discord at the end of every single one of our show notes. Brad, you've just mentioned what next week's movie is. We are taking a very hard turn into into the world of Terrence Malick and we are checking out the Tree of Life next week.

57:42 The only movie funnier than some, like in Hot. All right, so join us for that existential crisis that we're going to have next week. Until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.