By William Triplett

Some like it cute.

The light and airy musical version of "Some Like It Hot," Billy Wilder's classic sex comedy from 1959, just opened a brief run at Wolf Trap's Filene Center. Star Tony Curtis mugs his way from the first moment he appears, endearingly trussed up as an aging millionaire playboy, to the end, when he delivers the show's famously perfect clincher.

Mugging isn't necessarily bad here, given that the campy tale sometimes almost demands it. And with a brassy, swinging score, some clever, breezy choreography, a slathering of schmaltz and more lingerie-clad babes than in a Victoria's Secret catalogue, the show doesn't pretend to be anything more than a frilly whim. Dulled, though, is that brilliantly witty edge of social satire that Wilder, a laughing cynic if there ever was one, infused into his film.

Restyled as a musical in 1972 under the title "Sugar," the show now uses the film's title and has music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and a book by Peter Stone. Screen and stage plots are the same: Joe and Jerry, two Prohibition-era musicians in Chicago, don drag and become Josephine and Daphne, respectively, so they can join an all-female band to hide from Spats (William Ryall), a mobster who wants them dead.

The band heads south to Miami, where Joe does some quick uncross-dressing to romance sexy band mate Sugar, while Jerry, as Daphne, constantly fends off the roaming hands of Osgood (Curtis). Then Spats and his gang show up.

Stone's charming book, Styne's bouncy music and Merrill's double-entendre-laden lyrics stand on their own as they emphasize screwy romantic comedy (basically boy/girl meets girl, loses girl, gets girl) over Wilder and co-screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond's shrewd sex comedy (boy/girl meets girl while other boy/girl meets old boy -- and each meets some new part of him/herself). But most of the initial appeal of the musical "Some Like It Hot" is that Curtis played Joe in the movie -- opposite Jack Lemmon as Jerry/Daphne and Marilyn Monroe as Sugar. He's now in the role that Joe E. Brown played indelibly onscreen, but Curtis's problem isn't that Osgood can't be made just as memorable onstage. It's that Curtis isn't the one to do it.

At 77, he's making his professional stage debut, and it shows: Though not a singer, he can sing, and he smiles winningly, but he's awkward, stiff, even downright ungainly when he moves and -- worse -- has no stage presence. Without the drawing power of his name and his association with the movie, it's hard to imagine him getting past a first audition.

Fortunately for the show, Osgood isn't the main character, and Arthur Hanket (Joe), Timothy Gulan (Jerry) and Jodi Carmeli (Sugar) are stage veterans. All three have sturdy voices, and Gulan frequently evokes the giddy delirium Lemmon did in playing Jerry/Daphne. Similarly, Carmeli, vocally as well as visually, often summons Monroe's trademark erotic innocence. They're well supported by a strong chorus and bit characters who alternately swirl, strut and dance across the stage per Dan Siretta's lively directing and choreography. In fact, Siretta may have invented a new genre of dance: gangsta tap, in which mobsters hotfoot it with the best of them.

James Leonard Joy's lean and colorful sets swoop gracefully in and out, whisking us from downtown Chicago to a Pullman sleeping car to a posh hotel and an even posher yacht, and Suzy Benzinger's costumes lavishly bring the era to life. "Some Like It Hot" is meant to please in the way old-fashioned musical theater has always meant to please, and if you like a musical that winks at you adorably while making you laugh, you'll be very pleased indeed.