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The Seven Year Itch

The Seven Year Itch

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: classic sex farce
Review: THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH provided for Marilyn Monroe the chance to play in an accomplished sex comedy, and gave the world a singular Marilyn moment: the now-classic subway grate scene.

Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell in his original Broadway role) has just farewelled his wife and young son for the annual summer exodus from New York. Far from having nothing to do, Sherman fantasises all day and night about the never-named girl (Marilyn Monroe) who has just moved into the apartment above his.

Evelyn Keyes (GONE WITH THE WIND) gives a comically-knowing performance as Sherman's wife, while Marilyn is delightful in her brilliant rapport with Ewell.

George Axelrod's long-running Broadway play was the basis of the film, but the all-powerful censorship board saw too many "vulgarities" in the play (where Sherman actually has an affair with the upstairs girl). In the film it is only toyed with. Walter Matthau was originally considered for the Sherman role, but Ewell fills the role of the everyman so perfectly that it is almost impossible to think of the film without him.

The DVD includes the "Backstory" making-of featurette, deleted scenes, restoration comparisons, trailer and gallery.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE ULTIMATE MARILYN.....
Review: This is the ultimate Monroe film. The one where she stands over a subway grating on a hot summer night to feel the rush of cool air from the trains passing beneath---the rush of air blowing the skirt of her sexy white halter dress up around her. But there's a movie that goes with this legendary image and it's a classic. Based on the adult Broadway play, "Itch" was watered down for the screen and stars Tom Ewell as the frustrated married man and Monroe as the Girl Upstairs. One hot New York summer, a man sends his wife and small son away for the summer---as all New York men do this time of the year according to Ewells' narration. He's left alone in their apartment to struggle with his vices---cigarettes and booze---when all of a sudden the Girl moves in sub-letting the apartment upstairs. She's a TV model and commercial actress and delightfully portrayed by Monroe. The homely and dumpy Ewell begins having steamy sex fantasies visualizing himself as a powerful lover irrestible to women. Monroe wants to be neighborly so she keeps inviting herself down to his flat frustrating the hopelessly timid Ewell. She doesn't realize her effect on him but he's got an air condtioner and it's hot upstairs. She's completely guileless. Monroe is perfect as the Girl and Ewell personifies the Everyman confronted with temptation when left to his own devices. Monroe is breathtaking in Technicolor and her performance speaks volumes about her comic potential. The subway grating scene caps her legend as a sex symbol but when you watch her performance here you see she was so much more than that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Marilyn Monroe over a subway grate... isn't it delicious!
Review: .
Marilyn Monroe will forever and always be remembered for the iconic image she created by standing over a New York subway grate on a hot summer night, her pleated white dress billowing up around her hips like the giant wings of a great white butterfly.

Unfortunately, the image of this scene that actually made it into the film only shows Monroe from the knees down. Apparently the censors not only ate chunks out of the best dialog in the script, but also took pieces of the most vivid iconic iimagery ever imagined to appear on the silver screen!

This film is terribly dated in a 1950's way, and the plot of the original Broadway play from which the screenplay was written was too racy to make the transition to the big screen without a major overhauling of the more interesting scenes. Still, it's a funny film with several great moments.

Despite the heavy-handed censoring, what we're left with is a cute film with Marvelous Marilyn at her absolute best in terms of magical beauty and comedic flair.

Tom Ewell was born to play the role of the "everyman" who sparks a summertime romance with the girl of his dreams,
"the girl upstairs" as she's known in the film. And who else but Marilyn Monroe could play the role of "the girl", a woman who's so fabulous, she doesn't even need a name?

More people have seen the famous still photos of Monroe in that white dress than have ever seen this movie... and that in itself speaks volumes about the enduring magic of Marilyn.

It's a cute film. Enjoy it on a hot summer night with a bag of patoto chips and a bottle of champagne. As Marilyn herself would say, "How elegant!"

MMmmmmarvelous Marilyn!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Comedy!!
Review: Not only can Marilyn Monroe act, but she is also a very funny lady as well. Quite an ensemble cast, here, with Tom Ewell, as the schizophrenic tenant who lives beneath Marilyn, and his fantasies about what it might be like to have an "affair" with the girl upstairs. Then when he learns that in this particular hot summer, that she doesn't wear underwear, well, his imagination takes off.

There are some great scenes, but many of them deal with the outrageous scenes which Ewell imagines, with one of the best being his playing the piano like Sergei Rachmaninoff, while Marilyn sits next to him on the piano bench, and when the real scene develops, we find he can only play "Chopsticks" and the real scene is so far removed from his imagined one.

He's a strange one, this man, and Marilyn plays well in this movie. It's unfortunate that she was so under-rated!!

A great comedy, and it's highly recommended!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's "Just Elegant!"
Review: This is one of the cutest movies ever ~ Like many other husbands in Manhattan during the summer, Richard Sherman (played by the extremely funny Tom Ewell) sends his wife and son to the country for the summer, while he stays behind. While his wife is away, he tries to be a "good boy" by avoiding alcohol, smoking, and women!! But when a voluptuous blonde moves in upstairs his imagination starts to run wild~!! When she asks to stay over because her air condition is broke; THE FUN BEGINS!! Marilyn Monroe lights up the screen as the innocent blonde - in every scene, she gives off such an incredible glow!! Tom Ewell keeps you laughing all through the film while he talks to himself and has hilarious fantasies about women. Such a Fast-Paced and SEXY film from the 50's...you don't want to miss it. I definitely recommend checking it out; especially if you are a fan of Marilyn or Tom - or if you're not, just rent it if you feel like laughing, and you may become a fan of both!! Enjoy! :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: charming, funny and witty. a classic
Review: ah ha, yes the famous sub-way scene. i don't know if the male viewers of america know how much that scene upset Marilyn Monroe because that is what American men and woman thought of her after this film. The 7 year itch is about more than that sub-way scene, so let's drop the obsession with it please. that aside, this is an excellent movie, one of the best comedies ever. tom ewell is hysterical, as is marilyn. a must see. a true classic.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Delightfully Modern Comedy and the Subway Scene
Review: "The Seven Year Itch" is a wonderful film that opens up with the typical Manhattan family-or rather several of them being sent off to summer vacations while the husbands stay at home to "play" once their wives are gone. The overlying dialogue, provided by a narrator, gives the film instant appeal and is strikingly different than any other film I've ever seen. The dialogue in this film is very fun and the main character (played by Tom Ewell) has absolutely hilarious fantasies where he imagines himself in all sorts of incredible situations. One of these fantasies, my favorite in fact, involves Rachmaninoff.

Ewell's awkwardness and assuredness that he knows how to woo women is hilarious and strikes a chord in all men's hearts. He definitely plays to an older crowd-his ideas of dating and romance are wonderfully dated. One gripe I have of the film is that they show us the picture that Ewell discovers of his upstairs' guest (played by Monroe). Why do they show us the picture? The picture would have been better if they had left it up to our imagination.

Marilyn Monroe is loveable in this film, though one can get tired of her naïve character. One has to see this film, if only to catch the now famous subway scene involving Monroe and her skirt. The team who worked on the film did a magnificent job. The DVD is excellent and the extra features are definitely worth a look. "The Seven Year Itch" is a very funny comedy that manages to appeal to modern audiences. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This is a well-written movie, with wonderful performances by the 2 leads. I've actually never thought Marilyn Monroe as being all that beautiful, but she does look beautiful in this movie. Monroe pays a ditzy blonde (not unlike her real personality, if you've ever seen one of her monosyllabic interviews) and Tom Ewell plays the dorky guy smitten with her. A lot of guys will be able to relate to being around a beautiful woman, who you are mad for, but who doesn't notice you except incidentally, hardly at all, so you find yourself exaggerating everything the beautiful girl does, hoping to find meaning there that she's actually mad crazy for you, too! This movie captures that very well. Billy Wilder was a brilliant director. This isn't as good as "Some Like It Hot," but it's good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Man, is this hot, and not because of the skirt scene
Review: "Chapter 6-the Brubaker-Steichel theory of the sporadic infidelity pattern of the married male, or the Seven Year Itch."

Having sent his wife Helen and son Ricky to Maine to avoid the scorching July Manhattan summer, Richard Sherman, "keymaster" of a pocket edition publisher, stays behind to work, promising his wife to abstain from drinking and smoking. "Some husbands think just because their wives are away for the summer, they can run wild." However, the appearance of a young blonde renting his upstairs neighbours' apartment turns his life topsy-turvy, turning him into a bundle of nerves.

Sherman approves the covers of the pulp books: "Soup up the title a little, get yourself a cheerful and interesting cover. It's a question of imagination, and Mr. Sherman has a lot of it," says the narrator. To quote his wife and as a promoting film technology gag, "lately, you've been imagining in Cinemascope and Stereophonic sound." From his imagination, including a parody of the beach scene in From Here To Eternity, we learn that he doesn't feel he's good-looking or charismatic. It's his time with The Girl that changes him. His imagination ranges from the humorous, ridiculous, even paranoid. And he reveals his thoughts in soliloquys, which at times resemble trains-of-thought or even his subconscious.

The Girl turns out to be a typical blonde, but fun-loving, friendly, with simple tastes, understanding, trusting, and as it turns out, compassionate as seen from her sympathy for the creature of the black lagoon: "He wasn't really all bad. I think he just craved a little affection, you know. A sense of being wanted and needed." Oh, and she's definitely not a Rachmaninoff girl.

My take on the skirt scene? Maybe I'd seen so many pictures of posters of it that it wasn't a big deal, and it's a bit overhyped. There's plenty of superlativememorable dialogue, much of it funny, that boosts this movie. However, the Girl has the best one. When Sherman tells her he imagines a girl to love someone like Gregory Peck, she tears into him. "You think every girl's a dope? You think a girl goes to a party and there's this one guy, a great big hunk in a fancy striped vest strutting around like a tiger, giving you that 'I'm so handsome you can't resist me look? And from this she's supposed to fall flat on her face? Well, she doesn't fall on her face. But there's another guy in the room, way over in the corner. Maybe he's kind of nervous and shy and perspiring a little. First you look past him, but then you sort of sense he's gentle and kind and worried, and he'll be tender with you. Nice and sweet. That's what's really exciting. If I were your wife, I'd be very very jealous of you." Those sentences cheered me up when I first heard them, and made me think, "Well, maybe I've got it made, even though I don't look like Tom Cruise or Patrick Swayze." After all, like Sherman, I thought, no pretty girl in her right mind wants me.

The key trends of vegetarian cuisine, the coaxial cable, 50,000,000 TV viewers, and Arthur Godfrey are time capsule elements exemplified in the America of 1955.

Tom Ewell, who reprised his role from the George Axelrod play of the same name, must be one lucky actor. After this movie, he played opposite another blonde, Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can't Help It.

Robert Strauss is funny as Kruhulik the lecherous greasy-looking janitor, who quotes from Porgy and Bess to describe the antics of summer bachelors: "Summertime, an' the livin' is easy, when the fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high." Doro Merande has a funny line as a waitress whose pro-naturalist camp stance extends to pacifist sentiments. And Carolyn Jones, best known as Morticia Addams, plays a red-haired nurse smitten by Sherman in an imagination sequence.

For me, this is Marilyn's best picture and best character. I fell in love with her upon first seeing this. Now, though, I consider her an old friend. So, calling all the lonely creatures of the lagoon like me out there with great imagination and no esteem. Don't give up hope--there's a Girl waiting out there for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cute!
Review: I thought "The Seven Year Itch" was a very funny movie. I really felt MM's performance - it's a pity she never got any really good parts. She's fantastic. OMG, read the book "Blonde"... NOW!
But I digress. Some of the scenes, especially the piano scene, I found to be hilarious, and the comedic timing was perfect. From one person with a runaway imagination to another... I hear ya, buddy! Overall, this movie exceeded my expectations... I really liked it. Definitely worth a rent, at least.


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