The Seven Year Itch Details

One of the great moments from this film, when Marilyn Monroe lets the updraft from a subway ventilation shaft lift her skirt, has passed into movie legend; true cineastes will delight in noting that the sequence is divided into two horizontal cuts, since the film was one of Fox's early CinemaScope productions, and director Billy Wilder made it all look so seamless. If you haven't seen it before, you could well wonder what all the fuss was about, but in the more prudish 1950s this film, and the George Axelrod Broadway hit it was based on, were very risqué indeed, the title giving a catch phrase to the nation and a new insight into marriage. The film is still very funny, and beautifully played by Monroe and Tom Ewell (plus veteran Victor Moore as a plumber — don't ask!), but the attitudes have dated. Just make allowances for the period and enjoy yourself.

An amusing theatrical joke, with dream sequences like revue sketches, is really all at sea on the big screen, especially as the affair remains unconsummated, but direction and performances keep the party going more or less.