It stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, with George Raft, Pat O'Brien, Joe E. Brown, Joan Shawlee and Nehemiah Persoff in supporting roles.

A. L. Diamond is based on a screenplay by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan from the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love.

The film is about two musicians (Curtis and Lemmon) during the Prohibition era who disguise themselves as women to escape Chicago mobsters they witnessed commit murder.

The film received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning for Best Costume Design.

[5][6] The Production Code had been gradually weakening in its scope since the early 1950s, owing to greater social tolerance for taboo topics in film, but it was enforced until the mid-1960s.

Joe and Jerry escape, but later accidentally witness Spats and his henchmen gunning down Toothpick and his gang in revenge (an incident inspired by the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre).

Broke, terrified, and desperate to leave Chicago, Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women named Josephine and Daphne so they can join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators, an all-female band headed by train to Miami.

Josephine and Daphne become close friends with Sugar during a late-night party on the train and struggle to remember that flirting with her would compromise their cover.

The aging, multi-divorcee Osgood Fielding III, an actual millionaire, persistently pursues Daphne, whose refusals only fuel his desire.

On the yacht, Junior tells Sugar that psychological trauma from the death of a former lover has left him impotent, but that he would immediately marry anyone who could cure him.

The hotel hosts a conference for the Friends of Italian Opera Society, a front for a national Mafia meeting presided over by Little Bonaparte.

Joe conceals his deception from Sugar by telling her over the telephone that Junior must marry a woman of his father's choosing and move to Venezuela.

Sugar runs from the stage at the end of her song and jumps aboard Osgood's launch just as it is leaving the dock.

[9] The plot was based on a screenplay by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan for the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love.

According to York Film Notes, Wilder and Diamond did not expect a star as big as Marilyn Monroe to take the part of Sugar.

[35] With regard to sound design, there is a "strong musical element"[9] in the film, with the soundtrack created by Adolph Deutsch.

It has an authentic 1920s jazz feel using sharp, brassy strings to create tension in certain moments, for example whenever Spats's gangsters appear.

In terms of cinematography and aesthetics, Wilder chose to shoot the film in black and white as Lemmon and Curtis in full drag costume and make-up looked "unacceptably grotesque" in early color tests.

"[52] According to Metacritic, another review aggregator which calculated a weighted average score of 98 out of 100 based on 19 critics, the film received "universal acclaim".

[53] The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert wrote: "Wilder's 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies, a film of inspiration and meticulous craft.

[61] The 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll ranked it as the 38th greatest film of all time, tied with Rear Window and a bout de souffle.

[73] According to film historian Foster Hirsch, during a screening of the film at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in March 1959, "Joe E. Brown's nonchalant delivery of the final line elicited the loudest, deepest, heartiest laughter I have ever heard in a theater...recognizing a perfectly timed one-liner for the ages, a thousand spectators roared in unified delight.

[91] An unsold television pilot was filmed by Mirisch Productions in 1961 featuring Vic Damone and Tina Louise.

As a favor to the production company, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis agreed to film cameo appearances, returning as their original characters, Daphne and Josephine, at the beginning of the pilot.

Their appearance sees them in a hospital where Jerry (Lemmon) is being treated for his impacted back tooth and Joe (Curtis) is the same O blood type.

[94] Tony Curtis, then in his late 70s, performed in a 2002 stage production of the film, this time cast as Osgood Fielding III, the character originally played by Joe E.

[97] On January 5, 2019, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman confirmed they were writing the music and lyrics for a new adaptation in an interview with Graham Norton on BBC Radio 2.

[101] Ghee was the first openly non-binary actor to be both nominated for and to win a Tony Award, along with Alex Newell, who won for their role in Shucked.