Billy Wilder’s move from satire to burlesque
- Parody of the 1920s
- Plays on the star system:
- George Raft, Pat O’Brien, Edward G. Robinson, Jr.
- impersonation of Cary Grant

Deploying and reviewing clichés of the past:
- "one long series of cliches"
- reappraisal of sexual identity,
- transvestism and the manifestation of hidden selves, "reconfiguring of the men's characters"
- “self-knowledge and an enriched outlook”
- burlesque of Hollywood sexual stereotypes

- Joe and Jerry: their masculine characters, their “switched personalities” as women
- subversion of standard Hollywood seducation
- Joe’s transformation as “the film’s chief thrust”
- Jerry-Daphne, "the possibility of a fresh start for the Hollywood sexual stereotype"

- Marilyn Monroe’s screen persona
- her "forlorn moment”

Choice of black & white photography