Contains Spoilers
Hollywood's moral code in the fifties meant that sex comedies, in the sense that we would understand the term today, did not exist. `Sophisticated' comedies about divorce and adultery, with all the action taking place strictly offstage, were about as close as anyone ever got. This film is a typical example of that style of filmmaking. It is set in Manhattan during a summer heatwave. The leading male character, Richard Sherman, has sent his wife and son to escape to the cooler mountains of New England, but he himself has to remain in town, as July is a busy time at the publishing firm for which he works. The flat above his has been rented by an attractive young model, whose name we never actually learn. When Sherman meets her he spends most of his time in attempts to seduce her, interspersed with panic attacks at the thought of his wife finding out.
With its small cast of characters and action largely confined to a single flat, it clearly betrays its origins as a stage play. I have never seen the play on which it is based, but I was interested to learn that the play is actually more explicit in that the two main characters do have a sexual relationship. The theatre of this period was clearly more liberal about sexual matters than the cinema, in America at least. (In Britain the Lord Chamberlain's Office, which governed theatrical censorship, was quite as puritanical as its cinematic equivalent, the British Board of Film Censors). Despite this change of emphasis, the filmed version works well in its own right. Sherman becomes less a middle-aged lecher than a middle-aged fantasist. He fantasises about women, not because he wants to sleep with them (his fantasies generally end with him fighting the woman off amid protestations that he is a happily married man) but because his ego gets a boost from the thought that he is handsome, charming and irresistible. He pursues Marilyn Monroe's character not because he has any cause for dissatisfaction with his wife or any serious thoughts about divorce but because, approaching his fortieth birthday, he needs reassurance that he is still attractive to women.
Although Tom Ewell is witty and amusing as Sherman, it is Marilyn Monroe who steals the film (as she normally did). Now, this may seem like heresy to many, but Marilyn was not the most beautiful woman ever. She was not even the most beautiful actress of the fifties; several others such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor or Brigitte Bardot had more classically perfect features. What Monroe could do like no other actress of her time (and like very few who have come since) was to combine sex appeal with wide-eyed innocence. Her character in this movie is a fine example of this. Sherman falls for her precisely because she is not only pretty but also young and naïve; the sort of girl her can exercise his charms on without creating any real threat to his marriage. This is a film about flirtation, not about serious, long-term relationships, so it does not matter that the girl is the typical Hollywood `dumb blonde'. Monroe was perfect for the role; if virtually any other actress had been cast in it (including any of those mentioned above) the result would have been a very different film. There are also some amusing cameo roles from Oskar Homolka, as a Germanic psychiatrist, from Robert Strauss as the loud, pushy janitor and from Donald MacBride as Sherman's cynical boss.
Although the film must originally have seemed sophisticated and daring, fifty years later it is somewhat dated and now seems tame and lightweight. Even the famous scene where Marilyn Monroe stands above the subway grating is much less revealing than popular legend or the film's reputation might have you believe. When I say that a film is `dated', I do not necessarily mean that one cannot today watch it with pleasure, but rather that it is an example of an older style of filmmaking that it would not be possible to recreate today. (Indeed, a film of this type would probably have been impossible at any period after the mid-sixties). There is still much in `The Seven Year Itch' that is worth watching, but it no longer seems as fresh or as funny as it probably did when it was first released. It has not lasted as well as Monroe's other famous collaboration with Billy Wilder, `Some Like It Hot'. 6/10.
Hollywood's moral code in the fifties meant that sex comedies, in the sense that we would understand the term today, did not exist. `Sophisticated' comedies about divorce and adultery, with all the action taking place strictly offstage, were about as close as anyone ever got. This film is a typical example of that style of filmmaking. It is set in Manhattan during a summer heatwave. The leading male character, Richard Sherman, has sent his wife and son to escape to the cooler mountains of New England, but he himself has to remain in town, as July is a busy time at the publishing firm for which he works. The flat above his has been rented by an attractive young model, whose name we never actually learn. When Sherman meets her he spends most of his time in attempts to seduce her, interspersed with panic attacks at the thought of his wife finding out.
With its small cast of characters and action largely confined to a single flat, it clearly betrays its origins as a stage play. I have never seen the play on which it is based, but I was interested to learn that the play is actually more explicit in that the two main characters do have a sexual relationship. The theatre of this period was clearly more liberal about sexual matters than the cinema, in America at least. (In Britain the Lord Chamberlain's Office, which governed theatrical censorship, was quite as puritanical as its cinematic equivalent, the British Board of Film Censors). Despite this change of emphasis, the filmed version works well in its own right. Sherman becomes less a middle-aged lecher than a middle-aged fantasist. He fantasises about women, not because he wants to sleep with them (his fantasies generally end with him fighting the woman off amid protestations that he is a happily married man) but because his ego gets a boost from the thought that he is handsome, charming and irresistible. He pursues Marilyn Monroe's character not because he has any cause for dissatisfaction with his wife or any serious thoughts about divorce but because, approaching his fortieth birthday, he needs reassurance that he is still attractive to women.
Although Tom Ewell is witty and amusing as Sherman, it is Marilyn Monroe who steals the film (as she normally did). Now, this may seem like heresy to many, but Marilyn was not the most beautiful woman ever. She was not even the most beautiful actress of the fifties; several others such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor or Brigitte Bardot had more classically perfect features. What Monroe could do like no other actress of her time (and like very few who have come since) was to combine sex appeal with wide-eyed innocence. Her character in this movie is a fine example of this. Sherman falls for her precisely because she is not only pretty but also young and naïve; the sort of girl her can exercise his charms on without creating any real threat to his marriage. This is a film about flirtation, not about serious, long-term relationships, so it does not matter that the girl is the typical Hollywood `dumb blonde'. Monroe was perfect for the role; if virtually any other actress had been cast in it (including any of those mentioned above) the result would have been a very different film. There are also some amusing cameo roles from Oskar Homolka, as a Germanic psychiatrist, from Robert Strauss as the loud, pushy janitor and from Donald MacBride as Sherman's cynical boss.
Although the film must originally have seemed sophisticated and daring, fifty years later it is somewhat dated and now seems tame and lightweight. Even the famous scene where Marilyn Monroe stands above the subway grating is much less revealing than popular legend or the film's reputation might have you believe. When I say that a film is `dated', I do not necessarily mean that one cannot today watch it with pleasure, but rather that it is an example of an older style of filmmaking that it would not be possible to recreate today. (Indeed, a film of this type would probably have been impossible at any period after the mid-sixties). There is still much in `The Seven Year Itch' that is worth watching, but it no longer seems as fresh or as funny as it probably did when it was first released. It has not lasted as well as Monroe's other famous collaboration with Billy Wilder, `Some Like It Hot'. 6/10.