By PERRY STEWART
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer

DALLAS - He can't sing. He can't dance. What Tony Curtis can do is revisit the stage version of a 1959 movie in which he played a romantic lead.

     This time, however, he's a comedy character type.

     Banish all thoughts of Joe E. Brown's portrayal of playboy Osgood Fielding III in the movie Some Like It Hot. The re-invention of Osgood by Curtis is that complete in the new stage musical version of the film. Brown: endearingly goofy. Curtis: suave and sexy in a consciously klutzy way.

     A touring production of Some Like It Hot, the musical, opened Tuesday night in the Music Hall at Fair Park as part of a Dallas Summer Musicals season.

     If your memory of the movie is hazy, be reminded that the object of Osgood's lecherous designs is Daphne, a bass player in an all-female orchestra. Alas, Daphne is really a male named Jerry.
      The year is 1929. Jerry and his sax player pal, Joe, have witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. Pursued by the killers, they disguise themselves as women and join an all-women band headed for Florida.

      The disguised musicians in the film were the late Jack Lemmon and Curtis. The latter's comic seduction of Sugar, the band singer, was a delicious running gag paralleled by Brown's pursuit of the Lemmon character.

      In this staging, Timothy Gulan and Arthur Hanket take the Lemmon and Curtis roles, respectively. They're the workhorses of the show, ringing down the first act with Doin' It for Sugar, a gem in the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill song bag. Later, they take impressive solo turns - Gulan on the comical Magic Nights, Hanket on It's Always Love, one of the few serious numbers in the show.

     This musical is the offspring of Sugar, a 1972 stage version of the film. In that show, the Capone-like architect of the St. Valentine's Massacre was a tap-dancing hood named Spats. In the current rendering, director/choreographer Dan Siretta expands on the tap motif, with wonderful results. Add to that a marvelous portrayal of Spats by William Ryall, a 6-foot-5 tower of talent.

      Backed by a platoon of pinstriped thugs, he vows to Tear the Town Apart. It's the first big moment in the show, and it may tear the Music Hall stage apart before the end of this run.

     Jodi Carmeli does an unabashed impersonation of Marilyn Monroe, the movie Sugar. She's an even better singer than Monroe. In fact, Carmeli is terrific.

      Diane Masters and Jeffrey Spolan, producing partners of the DSM's Michael Jenkins, have cast the satellite characters well. Notable among this contingent is Leonara Nemetz as Sweet Sue, the bandleader, who leads a squad of blondes on We Play in the Band.

Perry Stewart, (817) 390-7712