The enduring appeal of the on-screen cross-dresser was borne out yet again yesterday when the Hollywood film establishment named as its funniest American movie Billy Wilder's 1959 classic, Some Like It Hot.
The movie, which in its day won an Oscar only for costume design, starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe in a story about two struggling musicians who dress up as women and join an all-girl band to escape the Chicago Mob after witnessing the St Valentine's Day Massacre.
But the results of the American Film Institute's poll of 1,800 industry insiders to find the funniest of the funny did not leave everyone in the best of humour.
"In large part these lists turn out to be a celebration of ignorance," said the film critic, Leonard Maltin. He took exception to the placing of Peter and Bobby Farrelly's There's Something About Mary - celebrated in large part for a semen joke - above everything by Charlie Chaplin other than The Gold Rush at number 25.
Second in the poll was Sydney Pollack's Tootsie from 1982, which stars Dustin Hoffman as failed actor who masquerades as a woman to win a part in a sitcom.
Two other cross-dressing tales make the 100 - Mrs Doubtfire at 67 and Victor/Victoria at 76. Woody Allen, whose films rarely do great business at the US box office, was the director with most movies on the list: Annie Hall, Manhattan, Take the Money and Run, Bananas and Sleeper.
Wilder wrote or directed a total of five and Charlie Chaplin made it with four. Mel Brooks appeared three times, with Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein. Buster Keaton's The General was the highest-ranked from the silent era.