Weird Wednesdays: Some Like it Hot (1961)

 Sometimes, Hollywood can't leave well enough alone.

Two years after "Some Like it Hot" became a box office hit with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, & Marilyn Monroe, someone at United Artists had the notion to adapt the movie for television. Now, remember, back in those days, men posing as women was still a novelty, outside of, say for example, animated shorts (i.e. Bugs Bunny often dressing in drag). Because of this, Billy Wilder's "Hot" ultimately raked in over $80 million globally.

Curtis & Lemmon agreed to appear in the pilot in 1961, and the only other cast members carrying over from the movie were 518 product Mike Mazurki and Joan Shawlee (ex-The Abbott & Costello Show). The ensemble also included Jack Albertson as a plastic surgeon who "transitions" Curtis & Lemmon, if you will, into Dick Patterson & Vic Damone, Jerry Paris (ex-The Untouchables), Rudy Vallee, Robert Strauss, & Anthony Caruso, who seemed to be plugged into gangster roles in almost every TV appearance back then (i.e. "A Piece of The Action", on Star Trek, a few years later). Tina Louise ends up in the Monroe role of the ukelele-playing singer.

Of course, UA brought Tina Louise back three years later in Gilligan's Island. After Hot failed to pass muster at NBC, Jerry Paris moved on to The Dick Van Dyke Show. You know, of course, that after "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory" put him on studios' radars again, Jack Albertson moved on to Chico & The Man in the mid-70's.

Wild West Wednesdays returns next week.