"Some Like it Hot," based on the 1959 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, is the hybrid amalgam of three competing influences and interests: the classic film, a disastrous 1972 stage musical called "Sugar" based on the Marilyn Monroe character, and the producers' cynical exploitation of 77-year-old Curtis as a means of selling tickets.

    Somehow, some of it works. Curtis can't really sing and he certainly can't dance, but he's irresistibly fun to watch in his limited stage time (though be honest, some of you were watching to see an endearing, old-time Hollywood star whom you love, and some of you were watching to see if the old guy might fall over the side of his yacht).

    The familiar story centers on Chicago musicians Jerry and Joe, who witness a gangland massacre and then take jobs disguised as Daphne and Josie in an all-girls jazz band headed for Miami. Curtis, who played on-the-run Joe in the film, is here on-the-make Osgood Fielding III, a wealthy fop hellbent on winning Jerry/Daphne, while Joe sets his sights on sweet Sugar, a ukulele player with millionaires on her mind.

    Without Curtis, this odd tour (which never played Broadway and has no aspirations of doing so), would not be happening. And the genial Curtis more than justifies his paycheck from the Tom Jones-like "We love you Tony!" shrieks from the women in the audience. It was certainly less painful than watching Ann-Margret in the recent "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." (A former critic who happens to be a deacon was leading a "guess-the-medication" pool at intermission, for goodness sakes!)

    "Some Like it Hot" has a lot more going for it than just Curtis, who does not even appear for the first hour, which coincidentally happens to be the best part of the show. The comic and charismatic Timothy Gulan, who had a starring role in the Denver Center's 1998 world premiere of "Eliot Ness in Cleveland," is every bit Lemmon's equal as Jerry/Daphne. The sets are surprisingly sophisticated and the glamorous costumes first-rate (especially the dancing girls doubling as martini glasses - olives and all).

    Best of all are the underutilized tap-dancing gangsters Spats (the stringy William Ryall) and his terrific thugs (Bobby Clark and James Darrah), a trio whose dancing feet cleverly double for the sound of semiautomatic gunfire.

    Now if the producers can only identify what doesn't work and ditch it, they might really have something here.

    I'll do my part to help, starting with ordering a hit on a disastrously dull second act. Early on, Jule Styne's score pulsates in the horn- and-bass style of the jazz age heyday ("Penniless Bums" and "Tear the Town Apart" are songs to build entire shows around), but it eventually languishes with dull ballads and drippy solos that don't exactly boil the kettle. The most insipid song of all, "Sun on My Face," is for some reason the reprise song.

    The title number is a curtain-call tack-on, but it's the best of the lot, a tap-and-toetag number that reminds the audience what might have been.

    The national touring production is often sloppy. Jerry and Joe's blond wigs never fully cover their brown hair, the girls' fake instrument-playing is just embarrassing, and much of the audience can see Curtis' two large TelePrompTers in action. But the company deserves a heck of a lot better than the lousy, amateurish sound system at the Buell Theatre, which cut in and out from beginning to end. Patrons asked to pay $60 might reasonably expect to hear the stinking show.

    The set is surprisingly textured, opening with stunning charcoal-gray spliced flats that offer a grimy aerial view of the 1929 Chicago skyline. The costumes are similarly dominated by black, whites and grays, presumably a nod to the black and white film. When the action shifts to the girls in draped train berths, director/choreographer Dan Siretta blows a golden opportunity for a legs-only dance number. And when the action shifts to sunny Miami, the black tones give way completely to spectacular blues and yellows.

    But despite all that color, the clunky second act is drained of all life as nearly every character grows pale. Joe's impulsive turn as a fake Aussie millionaire to trick Sugar comes across as cruel because it drags on far too long for spontaneity to be a credible excuse. And Jodi Carmeli is cute as a button as Sugar, but her mimicking of Monroe's every whispy breath falls flat (and how often can you say that about a Monroe clone?). Clearly Curtis isn't the only Hollywood icon being taken advantage of here.

    By its tepid end, the only relationship that works is the surprising one between Curtis' Osgood and Gulan's Daphne/Jerry, who becomes so genuinely enraptured by Osgood's affections that he forgets he's actually a man.

    Somehow, "Some Like it Hot" has stood the test of time and, like the glimmer in Curtis' eyes, it somehow still has some life left in it.

    If its next incarnation evolves feet-first, it might yet be around for a long time to come.