Richard Sherman: “Are you sure you want to waste your champagne now that you know I’m married.”
The Girl: “I think it’s wonderful that you’re married.”
Richard Sherman: “You do?”
The Girl: “Of course. I mean I wouldn’t be lying on the floor in the middle of the night in someone’s apartment drinking champagne if he wasn’t married.”
Richard Sherman: “That’s a very interesting line of reasoning.”
Every once in a while, a scene, or to break it down even further, a moment, forever captures the zeitgeist of the cinema world. . . more long lasting and memorable than the movie ever could be. By now, you may have already guessed that I am talking about the breezy subway grate blowing up Marilyn Monroe’s flowy white dress (cooling her down on a hot summer’s night) in The Seven Year Itch (1955).
Funnily enough, the press generated from the scene’s filming in New York City (the excitement of over five thousand fans watching them shoot and then spreading the word. . .along with the risqué-for-the-time photographs that circulated around the world) brought people into theatres to experience a moment that could never truly match up with what was broadcast. . . for the Hays code would never allow the revealing extent shown before the release to be seen on screen – though that is not to say that it is still not a fabulous clip. . . and I’m here to also say, so is the film.
Co-written and directed by cheeky and sneaky Billy Wilder (one of the true masters of getting sly dialogue and visuals past the Hays’ screeners – also think Some Like It Hot), he drops us into the steamy summer streets of New York City, where Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell – reprising his role from the stage play) is sending his wife Helen (Evelyn Keyes) and son Ricky (Tom Nolan) out to the country to beat the heat – a trip that will keep them away for two months.
With a prime position in a sensationalist pocket paperback company (that prints new and old material with envelope-pushing front covers), Richard has an overactive and rather bawdy imagination that can get him all worked up. . . a somewhat awkward and geeky guy who has visions of himself being an adonis early on. Looking to stay out of trouble (unlike many of the other men whose wives are away – Billy Wilder implying that some things never change), he has the unlucky fortune (or lucky – depending on how you look at it) of finding an angel from on high living in the upstairs apartment for the summer. Further complicating things, he has promised his wife that he will give up both cigarettes and alcohol. . . you almost feel like he should be uttering the same lines spoken by Lloyd Bridges’ Steven McCroskey in Airplane! – “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking”.
Now, I say angel, for Marilyn Monroe’s character is never named, a cherub-like girl who floats into his life through the main door and never seems far away – descending each night from on high (and by that, I mean the upstairs apartment). Completely in her element (and playing with the persona she had slowly built over time), she is absolutely glowing, a vision of eroticism with a wholly innocent demeanor. She is the type of girl who keeps her “undies in the icebox” while her admirers keep their boxers in the kiln. Carefully written by Wilder, the way she says nearly everything makes it sound somewhat naughty – “my fan’s caught in the door”, but, you quickly realise that she is the most innocent and pure woman imaginable. It is a most delicate balance, in complete juxtaposition to Ewell’s Richard (who is almost always spinning in a somewhat murky mind of filth or macabre scenarios), the pair working together to create a perfect aura. Further enlivening their playful banter, Alfred Newman’s jazzy, swinging score (that sometimes sounds a bit like the classic tune “I Get a Kick Out of You”) is sexy, playful, provocative and comedic. . . a flawless compliment to the visuals (furthering the distorted forbidden dance taking place onscreen). It is the type of score you could easily listen to outside of the film. . . and I think there is no better compliment that can be made than that.
The striking, if lesser known, German poster for The Seven Year Itch
A film that lifts the curtain on the whole pure and perfect vision of 1950s America, Wilder and George Axelrod (who also wrote the original play of the same name) introduce viewers to a naughtier side of the era. Sometimes subtly, sometimes less so (you wonder just how bright the censors were), Wilder utilizes a bottle of champagne, a paddle that needs to be sent to his son on vacation, music (“Chopsticks” of all things), and an array of other things to suggest, in wholly original and clever ways, that controversial three letter word – sex. I’ll leave it to your imagination (until you view it) just what the above mentioned things suggest.
Though we could probably modernize the title by reducing the number of years by about six, The Seven Year Itch is still just as entertaining today as it was all those years ago. For film fanatics, it is littered with movie references from the time – The Creature From the Black Lagoon, From Here to Eternity (the beach scene, of course), and a ride in the hay that will bring to mind Jane Russell in The Outlaw. . . plus there is the knowing line where Richard is nervously questioned by a guest about a possible blonde in his kitchen – the response, “Wouldn’t you like to know! Maybe it’s Marilyn Monroe”. A few other things to look for: Saul Bass’ enticing animated title sequence (the only one he would ever do for Wilder); the fabulous array of outfits worn by Marilyn designed by William Travilla; an entertaining cameo from Oskar Homolka as a knowing psychiatrist; lastly, watch for Wilder’s seamless transitions between reality and Richard’s fantasies. So, come to your senses and see this classic, you’ll have a grate time!