The Seven Year Itch (1955)

"Chapter 6-the Brubaker-Steichel theory of the sporadic infidelity pattern of the married male, or the Seven Year Itch."

Having sent his wife Helen and son Ricky to Maine to avoid the scorching July Manhattan summer, Richard Sherman, "keymaster" of a pocket edition publisher, stays behind to work, promising his wife to abstain from drinking and smoking. "Some husbands think just because their wives are away for the summer, they can run wild." However, the appearance of a young blonde renting his upstairs neighbours' apartment turns his life topsy-turvy, turning him into a bundle of nerves.

Sherman approves the covers of the pulp books: "Soup up the title a little, get yourself a cheerful and interesting cover. It's a question of imagination, and Mr. Sherman has a lot of it," says the narrator. To quote his wife and as a promoting film technology gag, "lately, you've been imagining in Cinemascope and Stereophonic sound." From his imagination, including a parody of the beach scene in From Here To Eternity, we learn that he doesn't feel he's good-looking or charismatic. It's his time with The Girl that changes him. His imagination ranges from the humorous, ridiculous, even paranoid. And he reveals his thoughts in soliloquys, which at times resemble trains-of-thought or even his subconscious.

The Girl turns out to be a typical blonde, but fun-loving, friendly, with simple tastes, understanding, trusting, and as it turns out, compassionate as seen from her sympathy for the creature of the black lagoon: "He wasn't really all bad. I think he just craved a little affection, you know. A sense of being wanted and needed." Oh, and she's definitely not a Rachmaninoff girl.

My take on the skirt scene? Maybe I'd seen so many pictures of posters of it that it wasn't a big deal, and it's a bit overhyped. There's plenty of superlativememorable dialogue, much of it funny, that boosts this movie. However, the Girl has the best one. When Sherman tells her he imagines a girl to love someone like Gregory Peck, she tears into him. "You think every girl's a dope? You think a girl goes to a party and there's this one guy, a great big hunk in a fancy striped vest strutting around like a tiger, giving you that 'I'm so handsome you can't resist me look? And from this she's supposed to fall flat on her face? Well, she doesn't fall on her face. But there's another guy in the room, way over in the corner. Maybe he's kind of nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First you look past him, but then you sort of sense he's gentle and kind and worried, and he'll be tender with you. Nice and sweet. That's what's really exciting. If I were your wife, I'd be very very jealous of you." Those sentences cheered me up when I first heard them, and made me think, "Well, maybe I've got it made, even though I don't look like Tom Cruise or Patrick Swayze." After all, like Sherman, I thought, no pretty girl in her right mind wants me.

The key trends of vegetarian cuisine, the coaxial cable, 50,000,000 TV viewers, and Arthur Godfrey are time capsule elements exemplified in the America of 1955.

Tom Ewell, who reprised his role from the George Axelrod play of the same name, must be one lucky actor. After this movie, he played opposite another blonde, Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can't Help It.

Robert Strauss is funny as Kruhulik the lecherous greasy-looking janitor, who quotes from Porgy and Bess to describe the antics of summer bachelors: "Summertime, an' the livin' is easy, when the fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high." Doro Merande has a funny line as a waitress whose pro-naturalist camp stance extends to pacifist sentiments. And Carolyn Jones, best known as Morticia Addams, plays a red-haired nurse smitten by Sherman in an imagination sequence.

For me, this is Marilyn's best picture and best character. I fell in love with her upon first seeing this. Now, though, I consider her an old friend. So, calling all the lonely creatures of the lagoon like me out there with great imagination and no esteem. Don't give up hope--there's a Girl waiting out there for you.

This is the ultimate Monroe film. The one where she stands over a subway grating on a hot summer night to feel the rush of cool air from the trains passing beneath---the rush of air blowing the skirt of her sexy white halter dress up around her. But there's a movie that goes with this legendary image and it's a classic. Based on the adult Broadway play, "Itch" was watered down for the screen and stars Tom Ewell as the frustrated married man and Monroe as the Girl Upstairs. One hot New York summer, a man sends his wife and small son away for the summer---as all New York men do this time of the year according to Ewells' narration. He's left alone in their apartment to struggle with his vices---cigarettes and booze---when all of a sudden the Girl moves in sub-letting the apartment upstairs. She's a TV model and commercial actress and delightfully portrayed by Monroe. The homely and dumpy Ewell begins having steamy sex fantasies visualizing himself as a powerful lover irrestible to women. Monroe wants to be neighborly so she keeps inviting herself down to his flat frustrating the hopelessly timid Ewell. She doesn't realize her effect on him but he's got an air condtioner and it's hot upstairs. She's completely guileless. Monroe is perfect as the Girl and Ewell personifies the Everyman confronted with temptation when left to his own devices. Monroe is breathtaking in Technicolor and her performance speaks volumes about her comic potential. The subway grating scene caps her legend as a sex symbol but when you watch her performance here you see she was so much more than that.

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I picked this up because I'm a huge Billy Wilder fan and I've never seen the film. It's fantastic! Beautiful HD transfer. Wonderful humor from the times that still feels relevant and a big "stick it" to the Hays Code.

The best part about this though is the special features. Commentary, picture-in-picture history lesson on the Hays Code, multiple featurettes. It's a great release!

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I am a huge fan of Marilyn and my goal is to see all of her movies and when I saw "The 7 Year Itch" I was blown away. Marilyn was wonderful in the movie playing the sexy girl upstairs that attracts an older man living downstairs while his wife and son are away for summer vacation. I think everyone who loves Marilyn Monroe should see this movie it is one of her best and i'm sure that u will soon agree.

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her role as the girl upstairs in The Seven Year Itch. Not just her dress billowing up above her waist ,but the whole package, like her waving from the second floor window. Wow. Almost a great movie but definately great Marilyn. She's doing her "dumb blonde" routine. But don't hate her for doing it so well. It was good acting. She was not dumb. A word about Tom Ewell. He perfected

his role on stage & I would have loved to seen that. As the protagonist he carries the movie. The movie is dated, sexist, & P.I... for our time. For all I know people acted like this in New York City in the mid-50's (I'm not sure, I was five).

I do know the censors were childish tyrants, afraid of sex. Who were thse (...)?

Marilyn pulled this off while her personal life was crumbling. The numerous takes of her dress billowing up were gratuitous & demeaning. Her husband, Joe Dimaggio watching the whole thing was enraged & embarassed. I don't blame him. It may have been the last nail in the coffin that was their marriage. Very sad.

Marilyn was a much better actress then she was ever given credit for in her lifetime. We had mere glimpses of that (Bus Stop & Niagra). But for the sheer joy of Marilyn Monroe, at her comic peak, this is the movie to remember her by.

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