The Seven Year Itch

The only damn thing anyone knows from The Seven Year Itch is that iconic scene of Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate while a draft from a passing train blows her white dress up.  She puts her hands over the dress a bit so it doesn’t ride too high (she’s in public after all).  But this isn’t an accident.  You see it’s a stifling hot summer in NYC and this is one way for her to cool down.  If you watch this scene it isn’t shot and edited quite as sexy as you think you remember.  The intention is definitely supposed to be boner inducing as fuck though.

I thought it would be good to get that shit out of the way from the top so we can dig into the rest of this thing.  But I’m not sure how well this is gonna go.  Today we’re talking about a comedy with a dry and peculiar sense of humor and I’ve mentioned before that I tend to stay away from this genre on this blob because it’s difficult for me to write about.  Ah, what the fuck.  Let’s see what happens.

The very thin story revolves around a dime store novel editor named Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell (The Girl Can’t Help It)).  His wife and son are away on vacation while he stays behind to make the money that pays for their middle class Manhattan lifestyle (when there was such a thing).  Richard isn’t supposed to be drinking, smoking or eating unhealthy food per doctor’s orders.  He meets the Girl (Marilyn Monroe (Niagara)), yes she’s credited simply as the Girl, because she’s renting the upstairs apartment for the summer and needs help getting into the building.  A little later she accidentally pushes over a potted plant from the balcony above and Richard narrowly evades a broken pelvis.  He’s pissed at first but when he lays eyes on the voluptuous Girl all is forgiven.  They become fast friends and spend a couple of days together.  That’s it.  Told you it was thin.

What drives the movie is what Richard perceives to be sexual tension, but is really awkwardness, between he and his new neighbor.  They’re pretty much opposites but I don’t mean in an opposites attract kind of way. 

On one hand the Girl is well, Marilyn goddamn Monroe and she is at her most Marilyn Monroe-iest here.  She’s a gorgeous blonde with a spunky personality and loveable eccentricity.  She’s not an idiot but puts off such positive vibes, is so nice, jovial, non-judgmental and comfortable with herself that she’s almost annoyingly content.

Richard on the other hand is neurotic, possibly bi-polar with his sharp mood swings, over-analyzes every situation yet can’t keep his mind on one thought for too long and is completely delusional.  This guy thinks the Girl wants to get with him when there’s been no evidence to support that.  He tries to put on a gregarious façade and fumbles badly which sorta makes me feel sorry for him.

Almost the entire film takes place in Richard’s apartment where he talks to himself about various topics (this was based on a play).  He reminisces about adulterous encounters he’s had with various women behind his wife’s back, fantasizes how he’s going to seduce the Girl and imagines how his wife would shoot him if she found out about any of this.

While that last paragraph sounds incredibly perv-y and paints Richard as an outright scumbag the movie presents his anecdotes as ridiculously exaggerated and of questionable authenticity.  For one thing Richard is a clueless goofball that might think he’s a stud muffin but it’s clear he’s anything but.  He’s not handsome or suave or particularly witty so we have a strong hunch that the stories about him cheating on his wife are made up.  Still there’s certainly an argument to be made that it’s bad enough he has these thoughts to begin with.

But the key thing is all the comedy in this movie is exaggerated in some way.  Like when Richard imagines swooning the Girl he pictures himself at the piano hammering out an extremely melancholic Rachmaninoff concerto while the Girl is tortured by its beauty gazing off while smoking from one of those long cigarette holders.  As you can see he has the totally wrong idea about romance and the mind of a seven year old when it comes to this shit.

So the sexual tension is all in Richard’s head and it’s good to see that he never really comes close to acting on it.  I mean I don’t think he’d know what to do even if the Girl was actually into him.  No, instead the few days these two spend together they genuinely enjoy each other’s company by having a few talks and giggles.  And the Girl piles on the quirky with a snack of potato chips dipped in champagne, telling a story of how her big toe got caught in the bathtub faucet and she keeps her underwear in the icebox.  Their conversations don’t get too deep.

One quick aside before I wrap up, this movie (and I guess the 1952 play) makes a commentary on health conscious diets.  Richard is on one and eats at a vegetarian (or maybe even vegan) restaurant after his wife and son leave.  He appears to have some trouble digesting the food and the waitress takes a hard anti-clothing stance.  This is obviously poking fun at people who frown on animal products and nudists in general.  However, things get a little murky later when Richard reads off the ingredients of a soda he’s swapped out for his usual evening cocktail and wonders why all the strange chemical sounding components are healthier than a scotch.  Yea that’s a swipe at soda but it’s not what you think.  Back in the 50’s soda wasn’t considered tremendously unhealthy like it is today so they were taking aim at what was then considered a much healthier alternative to booze.  Also, Richard acts more manic when he tries to abstain from smoking and drinking and mellows out once he takes a drag and a swig.  Bottom line: this movie thinks healthy lifestyles are stupid.

Ok, I think most folks probably haven’t seen this one.  They only know the one dress scene and that’s a shame because I kinda love this piece.  While I can see many people being turned off by Richard’s immature and possibly debauched mind I think he’s too silly and the whole movie’s too silly to be taken very seriously.  It’s undeniably a male fantasy scenario with a pretty girl wanting to come over and hang out just because.  Plus she’s only renting the upstairs apartment for a few months so there aren’t any strings attached for a long term commitment.  The weird thing is even with this setup nothing happens between these two.  That should be a major problem with the film but there’s something about the dialogue and the humor that hits for me.  There’s a childishness innocence to the whole thing like when adults get together of course they spend the evening eating potato chips and playing chopsticks on the piano, duh.