La comezón del séptimo año

In the 'fifties Hollywood created its biggest, best-loved and most powerful sex symbol of all—Marilyn Monroe…

Marilyn's appeal was, perhaps, in her weakness, in that revealing look of innocence and confidence, in her intense desire to be loved…

The 'seven year itch' points out the instinctive desire to be disloyal after seven years of matrimony, with a longing to satisfy one's sexual needs…

This amusing film was adapted from a Broadway play of the same name by George Axelrod, with Tom Ewell reprising his Broadway role, walking, worrying, and sweating…

Tom and Evelyn Kayes have been married for seven years… While he remains in Manhattan on business, Evelyn and their son Ricky (Butch Bernard) go off to Maine to escape the sweltering summer…

The apartment upstairs has been rented to a television blonde model (Marilyn Monroe). When she forgot her front door key, she had to ring Ewell's bell to let her into the building…

When Marilyn accidentally knocks a tomato plant onto Tom's terrace, the happily man invites the luscious young beauty downstairs for a drink, indulging in fantasies about taking her in his arms and kissing her 'very quickly and very hard'…

Marilyn comes in, explaining that she feels safe with married men... He makes a clumsy pass while they are at the piano but both fall off the seat… He stammers an apology, but she pretends it is nothing…

When Marilyn returns to her apartment, Tom envisions his wife having an affair in Maine with their big neighbor, Tom McKenzie (Sonny Tufts)… Then he sees himself lost between foolish fantasies of seduction, and terrible ideas of his wife capturing him in action… Finally he decides to put an end to his visions and asks Marilyn out to a movie...

On their way home, they stop on a subway…

As the trains go by underneath, Marilyn's skirts billow up…

It is so hot in the city she presumably loves the rush of air on her thighs…

Marilyn plays the scene in innocent delight… And Billy Wilder's shot shows a strapping blonde with a white skirt blown out like a spinnaker above her waist…

For this famous shot alone, the movie is a must see

In summertime in Manhattan, the plain and average Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) sends his wife and son for vacation in the country. Sherman is the key man of a publishing firm, Brady & Company, which publishes cheap pocket books. The faithful Sherman has a routine life with his family and dreams on being successful with women. When a beautiful and sexy blonde lodges the upstairs apartment of his small building, Sherman first opens the front door for her and then he invites her to have a drink with him after the fall of her tomato vase on his chair on the backyard. Along the days, he spends some time with the girl and feels tempted by her, but later he misses his family and travels to meet them.

"The Seven Year Itch" is a naive and innocent romantic comedy in accordance with the contemporary moral standards, but actually this feature tested the limits of censorship in a time when Hollywood was ruled by a rigid moral code. The story is based on a George Axelrod popular 1952 Broadway play about a man that has an affair with his upstairs neighbor. Unfortunately in the 50's, the American cinema did not have the same artistic freedom as theater. The screenplays and movies were submitted to the scrutiny of the powerful Hayes office, the censorship of Hollywood. There was a Production Code in Hollywood that stated that adultery should not be the subject of comedy or laughs, and this story violated the Code. Billy Wilder was fascinated by this story and purchased the rights of George Axelrod. However, to make the movie was a challenge for this great director, since many scenes and lines were ripped away by the censorship and by the National Legion of Decency, mutilating the plot.

Marilyn Monroe was selected to the cast, but Billy Wilder wanted a plain, average and non-handsome actor for the role of Sherman. His first choice was Walter Matthaus, but Fox direction did not want to take the risk of an unknown lead actor, therefore they selected Tom Ewell. The most famous scene of Marilyn Monroe, with her dress being lifted by the air of the subway, was first an exterior scene, but later Billy Wilder needed to shot again in the set because the noise and whistles of the viewers spoiled the original footage. This external scene also provoked the end of the marriage of Marilyn with Joe Dimaggio, who felt humiliated with the manifestation of the public.

One dialog that I particularly like is when Sherman and the blonde leave the movie theater and she says that the creature needed to be loved, in an analogy between Sherman and the creature of the black lagoon. The restored DVD is fantastic and this is the most sexually suggested role of Marilyn Monroe to date. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Pecado Mora ao Lado" ("The Sin Lives on the Next Door")

Peak Marilyn. She's funny, sexy, and absolutely charming, and it's also of course got that iconic moment over the subway grate. I've also always liked Tom Ewell in this. As silly as his character is and as stagey as his monologues are, I think he's funny and satirizes married men with wandering eyes pretty well. He has ridiculous fantasies, clumsily tries to put the moves on a younger woman, and is wracked by guilt. I absolutely love the scene where he plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 to set the mood (both in fantasy and reality), and how it was incorporated into the soundtrack. Another nice little moment is when he's fixing a couple of Tom Collins for the two of them, going on about how it couldn't have been chance for them to have met, while she's talking to herself about needing to return a fan to a store. I like how spare the story is, and the various one-liners in the script. Director Billy Wilder lamented making the film under the Production Code, and it is a shame that some things were censored, but Monroe's appeal can't be denied. I like it for what it is, a product of its time for sure, and a harmless sex comedy.

Favorite line: "Miss Morris, I'm perfectly capable of fixing my own breakfast. As a matter of fact, I had a peanut butter sandwich and two whiskey sours."

A conclusion I came to some time ago (and that doesn't seem to be reflected in any of the other reviews here) is that the whole story is a dream, a waking fantasy, on the part of Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell). There were no scenes where there is any objective confirmation of the existence of the Marilyn Monroe character, where anyone else could confirm any of the events between them; even the scene where Kruhulik (Robert Strauss) walks in is just the three of them, and Kruhulik is drunk, thus unreliable as a witness. Add to that the fact that Marilyn's character has no actual name, and is only referred to in the credits as "the girl", leads me to believe that the whole thing is Sherman's fantasy, that "the girl" never actually existed, that it's all a guilt-driven fantasy on the part of a 39-year-old middle-class white guy confronted with a "summer bachelorhood" in the City without his family. 🤔😉😊

Marilyn Monroe was a force of nature so great that Betty Grable her predecessor as Queen of the 20th Century Fox Lot claimed that MM saved the movie industry in the 50's when fans were switching to TV. I am not sure all about that but I do know that MM was incomparable as a comedienne. This is Ms. Monroe's first of two films with Billy Wilder and the great Director in an interview with Cameron Crowe noted that Wilder wanted Walter Matthau then a new Broadway star to co star with Double M but 20th insisted on Tom Ewell. One can only imagine Marilyn Monroe and Walter Matthau together! This is a great movie made greater by two greats Marilyn Mornoe and Billy Wilder.

Davud Barra