Director: Billy Wilder IMDb RATING 8.2/10 285K

• Jack Lemmon wrote that the first sneak preview had a bad reaction with many audience walkouts. Many studio personnel and agents offered advice to Billy Wilder on what scenes to reshoot, add and cut. Lemmon asked Wilder what he was going to do. Wilder responded: "Why, nothing. This is a very funny movie and I believe in it just as it is. Maybe this is the wrong neighborhood in which to have shown it. At any rate, I don't panic over one preview. It's a hell of a movie." Wilder held the next preview in the Westwood section of Los Angeles, and the audience stood up and cheered.
• When Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon first put on the female makeup and costumes, they walked around the Goldwyn Studios lot to see if they could "pass" as women. Then they tried using mirrors in public ladies rooms to fix their makeup, and when none of the women using it complained, they knew they could be convincing as women. There is a scene on the train recreating this moment.
• Jerry Lewis was offered the role of Jerry/Daphne but declined because he didn't want to dress in drag. When Jack Lemmon received an Oscar nomination for the role that Lewis gave up, Lewis claims he sent him chocolates every year to thank him and he now regrets not taking the part.
• According to Jack Lemmon, George Raft spent hours teaching him and Joe E. Brown how to tango.
• Marilyn Monroe wanted the movie to be shot in color (her contract stipulated that all her films were to be in color), but Billy Wilder convinced her to let it be shot in black and white when costume tests revealed that the makeup that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon wore gave their faces a green tinge.
• 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.
• A preview audience laughed so hard after Daphne's announcement of the engagement to Osgood, that a lot of the dialogue was missed. It was re-shot with pauses (and the maraca gimmick) added to allow for this.
• George Raft passes a young hood who is flipping a coin in his hand and he asked him where he learned a "cheap trick" like that. That trick was one that Raft used in Scarface (1932).