Seven Year Itch, The (1955)
The Seven Year Itch (1955), directed by Billy Wilder.
quote
The Girl: You know what? We can do this all summer. Hmm?
Richard: (moans softly)
As a kid I used to laugh hysterically at this when it was on TV. Somehow boys (at least) get sexual humor long before they have serious interest in sex itself. In this case I think it is not the presence of the Goddess, but rather Tom Ewell's homely, fantasy-prone clowning, the Everyman who will never know how ridiculous he is.
The character is truer than I suspected at the time (I say now from the other side of the hill). Men have rich sexual fantasy lives where they imagine themselves to be super studs, God's gift to women. We all beseech Marilyn that it may be true, to some extent, from time to time, at least a little...but if you take such egomania too seriously: you are a clown. Listen to the laughter from the audience.
As always, watching Marilyn Monroe suggests the "mystery of celebrity". A person has X because everyone agrees they have X. And they do, even if you've decided not to play that game. She is a Sex Goddess, whatever you think of her looks, which are often lovely, but not always. I keep trying to penetrate the glamor, appreciating her comic talent but still wishing she could have done more non-goddess work.
Adapted from a play about adultery and transformed into a comedy about guilty fantasies of adultery, which never actually occurs! Just a few kisses. Tom Ewell did the Broadway version over 700 times.
I might have trimmed some material that seems like comic filler. Do we need the kayak paddle?
Bits I probably wouldn't have noticed as a kid:
"Two guys on the top floor; interior decorators or something."
The "From Here to Eternity" beach scene.
Self-reference: his fantasy wife accuses him of dreaming in "CinemaScope with stereophonic sound."
"Remember me? The tomato from upstairs."
Her favorite word is "elegant". She dips potato chips in champagne.
Richard, after making a grab for her, causing both to fall off the piano bench: "I'm so sorry, that's never happened to me before!" The Girl: "That's funny, it happens to me all the time!"
Self-reference: "The blonde in the kitchen? It might be Marilyn Monroe!"
I would suspect she is entirely his fantasy, except that Kruhulik the janitor meets her.
He mentions "coaxial cable" service for TV. Cable TV first appeared in the US in the late 1940s and this is the first reference I can recall. A lot of the details of ordinary life are never mentioned in the movies, or even appear if the set dressers have been too busy. In the computer graphics age: forget it.
That iconic image of Marilyn's skirts blown up:
...doesn't appear in the movie; we see only her legs.
Available on Blu-ray with an aspect ratio of 2.55:1. The black levels could be better.
