7 ans de réflexion

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."

Something that irritates me about the IMBD is that if you criticise a movie that was made before 1980, a truckload of idiots send you messages telling you how much you hate old movies. Let me say right away, I don't. I like films from pretty much every era of cinema that I've had the chance to see, but, having had common sense recently installed, I've come to realise that age doesn't automatically make a movie great, just as modernity doesn't automatically make a movie bad.

So bearing in mind that I'm talking about this one movie, and not every movie made in the 1950s, The Seven Year Itch is as average as they come. The minimal plot sees Tom Ewell's `summer bachelor' trying to resist the charms of neighbour Marilyn Monroe while his wife and son are shipped off for the season. Very obviously adapted from a play, there are few characters, few sets, and even fewer laughs. That it succeeds at all is due to the charm of the leads and the occasional good joke that sneaks its way into the script.

The film's main problem comes in how it tells its story. First, it depends on Ewell constantly talking to himself, babbling on endlessly about what he's doing, what he might do, what he's never done, and what other people will think he's doing, done and about to do. Secondly, he is constantly daydreaming, the film constantly dissolving into one of his fantasies that are unfortunately no funnier than reality. If you find this storytelling approach irritating, as I did, the film's potential is lost immediately.

You'll no doubt be shocked to learn that in this film Marilyn Monroe is cast as a dumb blonde. Most people in the world seem to immediately pitch a trouser tent at the thought of Norma Jean, but I can't say I count myself among them. The problem with a dumb blonde is that she's dumb, so to find her attractive, you have to be attracted to stupidity. I'm not, so it doesn't matter how much she pouts, or how often we're treated to shots of her hourglass figure; she's as thick as a lobotomised footballer and therefore unattractive. She's basically got the personality and intelligence of a six year old, and, not being Gary Glitter, I can't say that appeals to me.

A comedy with few laughs, a sex symbol who doesn't float my boat, and a classic that just doesn't do it for me. I guess there's another bunch of snide messages coming my way.

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

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. 🤔😉😊

The film succeeds mainly because of Marilyn Monroe's obvious charisma and appeal - she really shines in this as the dizzy, curvy blonde upstairs. Tom Ewell has been married seven years and has seen his wife and son away for the summer - he determines not to smoke, not to drink, and not to chase women. The moment Monroe wiggles up those stairs all that goes out of the window and he starts fantasising about the new arrival.

There are a lot of funny situations and you're never quite sure what it in Ewell's head and what is real (well, I wasn't anyway). I love the scene where they are playing Chopsticks and of course, that old chestnut the 2nd Rach concerto rears its head! Victor Moore plays a doddery plumber and Oscar Homolka a shrink who advises Ewell not to consider anything as drastic as murder until he can get simple problems sorted out, while Evelyn Keyes makes the most of her few appearances as Ewell's wife (or is she his conscience?!).

The film is fun, the famous skirt and grid scene is now legendary (but quite unlike the often-seen poster shot), and there is much in this bouncy production after nearly fifty years to entertain pretty much anyone.