Karen D'Souza

     It's Tony Curtis, baby!

     That's all you need to know about the musical theater version of ``Some Like It Hot'' that opened at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco on Wednesday night. Curtis doesn't really sing. He doesn't really dance. But he's one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, and he out-charms almost everyone else in this lukewarm stage remake of Billy Wilder's classic film from 1959.

     Indeed, waiting for Curtis to make his entrance is half the battle. Since he is, at 77, a bit long in the tooth for the part that he made famous -- Joe the jazz man, who becomes Josephine to hide from the mob -- Curtis is playing the eccentric billionaire Osgood Fielding III, played in the movie by Joe E. Brown. It's a small role, and Curtis doesn't get a piece of the action until the near the end of the first act.

     Largely as a result, the top half of the show stretches on interminably. Such forgettable songs as ``Penniless Bums'' and ``The Beauty That Drives Men Mad'' come and go as down-on-their-luck musicians Joe (played here by Arthur Hanket) and Jerry (Timothy Gulan) go on the lam in drag after unwittingly witnessing the St. Valentine's Day massacre in 1929 Chicago.

     Gulan teases some witty bits of screwball shtick out of the show as the boys find themselves undercover in an all-girl band. The actor manages to straddle the line between imitating Jack Lemmon, who originated the role, and going for his own laughs.

     But Hanket seems to be going through the motions in such songs as ``It's Always Love'' and is generally wooden-neutral in a part that ought to be red-hot, all sweet talk and raging hormones. Or at least in was when Curtis played it on-screen.

     While it may be unfair to compare a musical with a film, it's hard to get the electric banter of that movie out of one's mind. The screen sizzled with equal parts repartee, wit and lust; the American Film Institute has ranked this tour-de-farce as the No. 1 comedy of all time. Too often, this show comes off as a reheated knockoff.

Sugar is sweet

     Jodi Carmeli turns in a technically perfect Marilyn Monroe impression as Sugar, the blond bombshell with a thirst for saxophone players and bourbon. Carmeli nails Marilyn's kittenish demeanor and sultry line delivery, and gives the show its one shake-the-rafters musical number, showing off her considerable pipes in the torchy ``People in My Life.'' There are times when her performance seems a bit formulaic, but bringing an icon to life is certainly no mean feat.

     There's also a whimsical routine involving tap-dancing thugs lead by a deadpan mob boss named Spats (William Ryall). These guys shoot from the foot, not the hip.

The draw of nostalgia

     But let's face it. The reason to see this ``Some Like It Hot'' is all about Curtis and those icy baby blues. The first time he hits the stage, there's a palpable exhalation of breath from the crowd. He's not out there very long, or very often, but there's something undeniably sweet about watching a legend in action, and it imbues some luster to such otherwise drab songs as ``Beautiful Through and Through'' and ``I Fall in Love Too Easily.''

     If this production reveals a marked lack of imagination, often recreating the film verbatim but drowning the comedy in half-hearted performances, perhaps such flaws are beside the point. Perhaps what audiences want in these uncertain times is really just nostalgia, a little reminder of the way pop culture used to be, the way stars used to be. On that score, this Tony Curtis vehicle satisfies expectations.

     He's even got the last word. When Osgood learns that his fiancee is not a member of the opposite sex after all, he delivers the punch line of a lifetime: ``Nobody's perfect.''