bombersflyup
The Seven Year Itch is a watchable film with enough interesting content, though lacking in its labelled areas of comedy and romance.The start of the film is a bit of a struggle, I didn't much care for the Richard character and I didn't like how he is thinking out loud and then doing what he is thinking, it is quite annoying. The point of inner dialogue to add the character's thoughts because they aren't actively doing anything or to be doing something and thinking something different or to explain what you are currently doing or seeing. The scene with Dr. Brubaker, I recall being the most entertaining. Marilyn Munroe was fine, lifting the level of the film somewhat, but to no great heights for me.
Eric Stevenson
It's weird when you grow up hearing a lot about a certain movie if only because of an iconic scene. All I knew was the famous scene where Marilyn Monroe's dress is uplifted by the air coming from below. I guess back then it was risqué, but nowadays it's fairly tame. It turns out this movie is actually about a guy whose wife and son go on a vacation without him and he ends up being tempted by a new neighbor. I thought that the title was just nonsensical. It turns out there actually is meaning behind it, as it refers to an actual psychological condition about men questioning their marital status after seven years.What I especially love about this movie is the two main leads. Now, there is something that really turns me off and that's how we only see the wife and son at the beginning of the movie. I really did want to see how they would react to seeing the husband again. Still, it's very entertaining. The funniest bit is easily when the guy says that the girl might be Marilyn Monroe. There are some really entertaining parts that take place in the guy's imagination and sometimes it's hard to tell what's real and what's not. Eventually, he does the right thing and neither of the characters are trying to corrupt each other. ***1/2
ElMaruecan82
Lately, I had a very interesting read about male infidelity, an expert was asked a simple, if not falsely naive, question: why is that men keep looking at other women even when they are with their love companions? Everyone noticed my head's nodding movements and the smile that went along, the expert stated the obvious, men are less likely to monogamy, so a man doesn't look at another woman because she's attractive but because she's another woman. The answer was in the question. The catch is that the man instantly forgets about that woman and won't think of cheating his wife. It's just the compulsive need to "check on the menu even though he's on diet". Still, a man always wants more, despite the rules fixed by any society, even the old 50's puritan American God-fearing one. Well, at least, that's what Billy Wilder believes and whether he's right or not is irrelevant, as long as it's funny. And while he handles it with humor, we suspect that there are some shades of truth behind the caricature of average men in "The Seven Year-Itch". Wilder finds a hilarious way to assert the universality and timelessness of the phenomenon through an opening sequence that showed Natives from the Island of Manhattan also getting rid of wives and family... to enjoy some private 'manly' business with a Native pin-up. And after an ellipse of a few centuries, respectable family men wave goodbye to their beloved ones before turning their head to the first 'tomato'. But one man is more disciplined than the others: played by Tom Ewell, Sherman promises his wife (Evelyn Keyes) not to drink, smoke or go out at night for the whole summer holidays. And he seems determined to keep his word, motivated by the promise of a long period of pure male idleness in the house's restrictive area. And Ewell plays fair with the rules; he goes to a vegan restaurant, hides his cigarettes packs in a drawer, then the drawer's key and drinks a bottle of coke. Isn't the best way not to yield to temptation not to come to it? But what if it comes to you?Sure, infidelity is reprehensible, I'm not sure any man with nerves of steel would resist to the 'Girl' next door if she happened to be Marilyn Monroe. This is quite a case of force majeure if you asked me. And in "The Seven Year Itch" Marilyn Monroe is sexy in a way that hasn't been soiled yet by the likes of Kardashian or Cyrus, sensual, voluptuous, yet her obliviousness to the effect she has on Sherman makes her even more irresistible. The film is full of clever 'fantasy' sequences in fact; the whole thing is a perfect fantasy. This is man with average look, even by Hollywood average looks' standards, yet the girl comes to his house, drinks with him, asks to sleep, and creatively uses the air conditioner, like a foretaste to a coming iconic moment. This is the funniest aspect of the film, Sherman doesn't even need to seduce the Girl, the real struggle is with his conscience, and seeing him wrestling with the impulses of this beast inside is the key to the film's enjoyment. Of course, it would have made sense if they 'made it', The Seven-year Itch" was based on a successful play about a husband cheating on his wife, the title being a reference to the midlife crisis tickling men's hormones after seven years of marriage. But in the 50's, Broadway was far more liberal than Hollywood, still under the tyranny of the Hayes Code. Like crime, infidelity wouldn't pay, or wouldn't even be object of clowning around. No kidding, it was a time where the Catholic League could prevent people from watching a film to save their souls. And it's hard to believe that Wilder who broke so many censorship grounds with "Double Indemnity", "Sunset Blvd." and "The Lost Weekend" would face the harshest resistance with a harmless comedy. But it's ignoring the Master's capability to counter-attack with an inventive screenplay full of delightful innuendo and ambiguous lines; he managed to deliver a comedy that is still naughty and raunchy for its time. That he considered the finished result a 'nothing' film because he couldn't feature the most central aspect of the play is too severe a judgment. Sure, he swam in less safe waters with "The Apartment" and "Avanti" broke the ultimate taboo by daringly showing jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills as naked as unfaithful, but Monroe wouldn't wait for so long... and they still exchanged a few sensual kisses, didn't they?Within its sexual limitations, "The Seven Year Itch" fully delivers its premises and provides the one image that forever made Monroe an icon, with the infamous blowing dress scene above the subway, a scene more iconic than the film itself. The scene also suffered from censorship and we don't get the full picture of Monroe with her dress blown, but the effect is the same nonetheless. And the picture is so iconic it took many shots, with many passersby whistling and cheering at Monroe, under the bitter eyes of newlywed Joe Di Maggio. What a sad irony that a scene that had to be shot again in a studio, still cost a marriage. As the Girl said: "it makes you think".But what a price to pay for posterity, if not a major comedy, not in the same league than the superior "Some Like it Hot", "The Seven Year Itch" blessed us with Monroe's signature shot, broke a few boundaries in terms of censorship and if the story isn't the most sensational, its making has everything, it is about sex, love, censorship, religion and marriage. The story of "The Seven-Year Itch" elevates it to this category of movies that didn't need to be masterpieces to become parts of Hollywood legend.
