The Seven Year Itch

Oh, yes. You're right. It's that movie. With what's-her-face. The image of Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grate getting her dress ruffled by a passing train is almost synonymous with cinema, Hollywood and American pop culture in general. But if you're not a film buff, Marilyn fan or interested in pop culture at all, chances are you haven't seen this movie. Which is a little sad, because The Seven Year Itch is a classic.

Telling the story of a married Manhattanite whose wife and child are away for the summer, the movie begins with the explanation that all the married men (in New York, at least) have affairs of some sort while their families are gone. While this premise is certainly debatable, it's worth noting that A) this is a comedy movie and B) it was made in 1955. While attempting to catch up on work, maintain his doctor's orders, and uphold the fidelity of his marriage, Richard Sherman finds himself being tested to his limits by the girl upstairs, a striking twenty-something blonde with a habit of walking around her apartment nude. He gets crazier and crazier for her, leading to many uproariously awkward and insane situations.

As a child of the nineties, I just didn't expect a movie made thirty years before I was born to be so funny. Tom Ewell shines as the neurotic Sherman attempting to stave off the temptations brought about by Marilyn Monroe's character, credited simply as The Girl. Monroe's performance is bubbly, naive, and consistently hilarious. She somehow comes off as innocent as a schoolgirl while still managing to be a thoroughly convincing flirt, and it's no small wonder how she attained such meteoric status in American cinema and the public consciousness.

Billy Wilder's direction gives the movie a clip, a beat you can almost dance to in the classic tradition. The movie's writing is witty, filled with side-splitting asides, and breaches the fourth wall at least three times. As much as I hate to say it, they just don't make 'em like this anymore.

And yes, it's got THE scene, with THE dress. The one you've seen parodied to hell and back. Interestingly enough, the famous full-body shots of the wind from the passing subway car lifting Marilyn's dress above her knees and her coyly attempting to cover herself are absent. The story is that the original scene was shot on location in Manhattan, but the uproar caused by the onlooking crowd made the footage unusable (they did a re-shoot on a sound stage; it was this that made its way into the final product). The sensibilities of the age may also have contributed to the cut.

This is a movie you need to see. An American classic comedy with one of the greatest American actresses who ever lived. It's very much a fifties movie, but still funny half a century later. If that doesn't define "timeless", I don't know what does.