The Seven Year Itch -- 1955

Here it is… The film that has achieved notoriety due to a single image: that of Marilyn Monroe standing on a grate over a subway with her skirt blowing up as she holds it down. The image is used on posters; it's been spoofed multiple times all over the place, so when I watched this, I expected to see one of the most famous shots in movie history…it doesn't exist. Indeed, her character stands on a grate over the subway. Indeed, the train goes under and the wind blows upward. But the shots in the movie both times this occurs shows her from the knees down, and then a cut to her waist up. The area between her knees and waist is never shown during this sequence…ever. Marilyn Monroe's most famous shot is nothing more than a publicity photo. How disappointing… Moving on.

 

The film itself is incredibly funny. It feels like it's based on a stage play because of its minimalistic set design (everything happens in the house and the office), and that fact has lent some very clever and funny characters as well as some off the wall situations that left me rolling. That, and I believe I read that the main actor was in the stage version…I also read that the innuendo was cut down from the play...bummer.

 

The plot follows a guy, Richard, who has sent his family off North for the summer while he suffers the New York heat alone. This is apparently a ritual of the era for the wife and kids to go where it's more comfortable for their vacation while the man stays and works in the hot days. Richard and his wife have been married for seven years, and he finds himself illicitly attracted to a naïve girl who is staying upstairs in an older couple's apartment while they're out of town. He is a book editor and is currently going through a rather boring psychology book which talks about a phase in a marriage called the "seven year itch" where the couple finds themselves possibly attracted to other people.

 

Richard experiences a great deal of duality and talks to himself a lot, something that could spell death for any film, but somehow it works here because of the duality it presents. He equally praises himself for being so attractive to this woman and then berates himself for inviting her in. Though nothing truly happens between them, the near misses are funny, and the thought of what could happen builds tension, especially when we note that he both does and doesn't want something to happen.

 

One thing he uses to justify his questionable behavior in spending time with Marilyn's character is his impression that his wife is also spending a lot of time with a man who is up North where she is. He actually spends some time fantasizing about what they might be doing together which only serves to make him want to hang with the girl more. this culminates in a hilarious finale where Richard and the supposed beau of his wife meet when the beau drops by to bring little Ricky his kayak paddle.

 

Richard is a cleverly created character who goes through his big roller coaster as he starts out by promising not to drink, smoke, or chase women while the wife is gone, and then immediately forgets once he sees the girl (Marilyn's character doesn't have a name). His personal exchanges as well as the conversations he has with the other incidental characters are very humorous, especially those coming from the psychiatrist who thinks, at fifty dollars an hour, all his cases are interesting. One particularly memorable moment with this psychiatrist is when he advises Richard, "Until you can commit a simple act of terror [referring to making out with the girl], I strongly advise you to avoid anything as complex as murder."

 

It's a great comedy that's not your run of the mill chick flick or even cheater flick. Will he break faith with his wife? Can he survive the wiles of Marilyn Monroe? Well, it's just as much fun watching his struggle with himself as he considers this.