The Seven Year Itch 1955
This is a pretty major movie in Marilyn Monroe’s career and features the famous scene of her in a white dress blowing up while she stands on a subway grate. The problem is the movie just isn’t very good. It is mostly about a married guy who spends the entire movie talking to himself and the audience and debating whether he should have an affair with Marilyn’s character and worrying about his wife, who is out of town for the summer. Tom Ewell hams up his part, but the writing isn’t that good either making the movie just painful to get through despite a couple of good scenes from his imagination. However, Marilyn is amazing. She looks fantastic and lights up the movie every time she makes an entrance. Her wardrobe is impeccable and she strikes a perfect balance of innocence and worldliness, game for pretty much anything, but never a tramp. She shows some good comic ability despite her high pitch soft voice she uses. Still, the movie needed a script and a plot and maybe funnier gags, and none of that is here. Even the subway grate scene is much tamer in the movie than the iconic footage from the filming of the scene. Billy Wilder, the director, blamed the Hayes office for censoring the screenplay, and while the broadway play had them have an actual affair instead of just a few kisses, it could have still worked, though it would have required more creativity than seems to have been available to fill in all the holes left by the censors. Around the same time I got this movie, I also picked up Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and have higher hopes for that one. I will say the movie looks really great on blu-ray. Some of the extras show clips from an earlier scan of the movie and they are pretty lackluster so this restoration did a very good job. Since the highlight is seeing Marilyn Monroe, then at least the blu-ray delivers on showing her at her best.
Written: 02 Nov 2019
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital