3/5 It Had the Potential to be a Great Collection!
  by J. Schmidt (The Northwest)
My one main gripe with this new collection from MGM is that, while I love Jack Lemmon, almost everybody already owns Some Like it Hot in one form or another! That particular movie has been released to death by MGM. First in 2001 as a standard DVD, then again in 2001 as a "Special Edition" DVD, followed by its release in 2003 in the Billy Wilder DVD collection, next it was released in 2006 in a nice 2-Disc collector's edition, MGM should have left it at that. Instead, MGM released the "Decades" version in 2007, and finally it again in 2008 with the Billy Wilder Gift set! And now this! My point is while Some Like it Hot is a excellent movie, MGM could have taken this opportunity to release some new more obscure Jack Lemmon movies instead of the same ones over and over. MGM should have followed Columbia's lead with the The Jack Lemmon Film Collection (Phffft! / Operation Mad Ball / The Notorious Landlady / Under the Yum Yum Tree / Good Neighbor Sam) and released some Jack Lemmon movies that have yet to see the light of day on DVD. For instance, Irma La Douce is no longer available unless you buy it in the mammoth, and expensive, Billy Wilder Collection. Why couldn't MGM have included Irma La Douce in this box set instead? There are other Lemmon films in MGM's library that could have been included in this set. Yes, they may be subpar to Some Like it Hot, but we also haven't seen them released a million times on DVD like Some Like it Hot. All that being said, if you have by some chance missed purchasing Some Like it Hot, along with the rest of the movies in the set, then I would recommend buying this set as it has 4 great films and the price is really cheap compared to buying each individually. So, 5 stars for the films themselves, 1 star for MGM's total lack of creativity, 3 stars overall.