The Seven Year Itch

 

A clever comedy that is not dated at all.

Legendary comedy masterpiece from filmmaker Billy Wilder and screenwriter George Axelrod that won various Golden Globe nominations . It packs a top-drawer duo protagonist , Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell , and a splendid secondary cast formed by a variety of notorious actors who make sympathetic interpretations . When his family , wife (Evelyn Keyes) and son , goes away for the summer, a so far faithful husband (Tom Ewell) is tempted by a beautiful neighbor (Marilyn Monroe) , a blonde model who moves upstairs . Understandably he gets itchy . Soon , the known but abortive relationship with his blond neighbor and his wolfish dreams coming to nothing in the face of her ingeniousness and his own ineptitude .

Rightly enjoyable and fun-filled , milestone comedy which neatly combines humor , mirth , entertaining situations and amusement . This noisy comedy is intelligently and pleasingly written to gives us lots of fun , laughter and smiles . This is the funniest comedy since laughter began , it is mordantly funny and today's considered a real classic movie . Billy Wilder kept the studio Twentieth Century Fox happy , the picture consistently made money and was hit at box office . Flawless comedy with a duo of sensational protagonists , including an unforgettable Marilyn who parades sexily at her best and more relaxed and enticing than ever , she tickles and tantalizes . Adding , of course , the funniest sequences of all being those in which Monroe's blown skirt and those in which Tom Ewell dreams as the great lover .Despite being one of the most iconic images in pop culture history, as well as one of the most recognizable photographs of Marilyn Monroe, the famous full-length image of Monroe standing with her dress being blown up never actually appears in the film ; the shot used in the film is only of her legs, cut with reaction shots, and never shown full-length. The hit of the show is undoubtedly for the fetching Marilyn Monroe who gives one of the best screen acting . Magnificent performance from Tom Ewell as an angst-ridden forty-years-old husband left alone while his spouse go off on holiday . Tom Ewell won the 1953 Tony Award for Actor in a Drama for "The Seven Year Itch" in the role of Richard Sherman, which he reprises in this film . Furthermore , an attractive support cast giving appealing interpretations such as Robert Strauss , Oscar Homolka , Carolyn Jones , Sonny Tuffs and Evelyn Keyes . 

As wives go on vacation, hunting season begins.

I'm just a friendly neighbor, that's all.

This sexy motion picture was very well directed by Billy Wilder who includes several punchlines . Billy was one of the best directors of history . In 1939 started the partnership with Charles Bracket on such movies as ¨Ninotchka¨ , ¨Ball of fire¨ , making their film debut as such with ¨Major and the minor¨ . ¨Sunset Boulevard¨ was their last picture together before they split up . Later on , Billy collaborated with another excellent screenwriter Ian Diamond . Both of them won an Academy Award for ¨Stalag 17¨ dealing with a POW camp starred by William Holden . After that , they wrote/produced/directed such classics as ¨Ace in the hole¨ , the touching romantic comedy ¨Sabrina¨ , the Hickcoktian courtroom puzzle game ¨Witness for the prosecution¨ and two movies with the great star Marilyn Monroe , the warmth ¨Seven year itch¨ and this ¨Some like hot¨. All of them include screenplays that sizzle with wit . But their biggest success and highpoint resulted to be the sour and fun ¨The apartment¨. Subsequently in the 60s and 70s , the duo fell headlong into the pit , they realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨ ,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨ and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨, though the agreeable ¨Avanti¨ slowed the decline . The team had almost disappeared beneath a wave of bad reviews and failures .

The seven year itch is an unforgettable legendary masterpiece. It's humorous, witty and extremely sophisticated, also very much delightful. Monroe gives a great Aurora of sex appeal. The amazing and powerful Director 'Billy Wilder' did a great job creating a film so full of life and realness. The innocence, and flirting are very casual and the film is just magical, it's beautiful and has to be seen. It's also a film that has never been copied in that same way, this is because it couldn't be, there's only one seven year itch, and there always will be to me.

Y'know these snacks aren't healthy.

Nothing beats a fresh night wind after a warm day.

The film has a message 'not to be unfaithful' and to resist temptation, and to mainly be yourself. What a great, memorable and powerful name for a film too, it describes it if you think about the film after watching it, it's your own personal perspective which i like. It's not the type of film that everyone can necessarily have the same types of views.

It was adapted from a Broadway play of the same name by George Axelrod, with Tom Ewell. I think it did a lot of good that Tom was educated and aware of the story as he was in the play and that's what made him so brilliant in the film, he was perfect as well and the wonderful and unforgettable Marilyn. The film is remembered for the radiant performance of Monroe, with the two personalities, the little girl and heart and the beautiful and secretly intelligent woman. I didn't like how she was portrayed as again a blonde bombshell, but you know she was fabulous at it and she know what she was doing, she also knew that that wasn't the real her and she wanted others to know too, accept some didn't take any notice and wanted to know her as that. I also hated that she was know as 'the girl' this is very important and sexist, but it worked.

Alcohol!

My oh my!

A voice-over narration introduces the film: "this is where we see Richard Sherman (Ewell) send of his wife and young son 'Ricky' for the summer at a crowded train station. In the next scene a number of businessmen follow a shapely female. This is where the story begins. Mr Sherman has a very creative imagination". When he first see's Monroe walking up the stairs to her friends apartment (Ewells) face tells all.

Of course everyone all knows the famous legendary scene even if they haven't seen the film. Monroe in her white dress, which blows up from the vents in the street, and Mr Sherman's line 'Cools the ankles doesn't it', while looking.

 
The classic shot of Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up around her legs as she stands over a subway grating was originally shot on Manhattan's Lexington Avenue at 52nd Street on September 15, 1954 at 1:00 a.m. with 5,000 onlookers, who whistled and cheered through take after take as she repeatedly missed her lines. Bill Kobrin, then-20th Century Fox's East Coast correspondent, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun in 2006 that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn the shoot into a media circus, and even had bleachers set up. This occurred in the presence of an embarrassed and angry Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's husband at the time. The original footage never made it to the screen; the noise of the crowd had made it unusable. Wilder re-staged the scene on a Fox set replicating Lexington Avenue, and got a more satisfactory result. However, it took another 40 takes for Marilyn to achieve the famous scene. 

a photo from the legendary scene.

Despite being one of the most iconic images in pop culture history, as well as one of the most recognizable photographs of Marilyn Monroe, the famous full-length image of Monroe standing with her dress being blown up never actually appears in the film. The shot used in the film is only of her legs, cut with reaction shots, and never shown full-length. 

Marilyn Monroe's lifelong bouts with depression and self-destruction took their toll during filming; she frequently muffed scenes and forgot her lines, leading to sometimes as many as 40 takes of a scene before a satisfactory result was produced.  

The seven year itch is very important in Cinema history and any Monroe or Ewell fan must see it, or someone who loves a great film.  Forget today's sex symbols...Marilyn is IT. If Kate Moss moved into the flat above mine while my wife as out of town with the kids, I'd have no trouble resisting temptation; but, Marilyn Monroe is a force of nature. She's a fertility goddess. She is pure hourglass with a dynamite smile. In short, she is pure concentrated femininity. 

The definitive bombshell.

The final photo session...

This movie is a comedy, and a good one at that. The timing of Monroe and Ewell is flawless. The scene where he jumps Marilyn on the piano bench in a brief moment of passion causing them both to fall to the floor gives this brief exchange...

"I'm sorry", Ewell says, "This has never happened to me before"

Marilyn answers, while standing up and adjust her clothes, "That's funny. It happens to me all the time"...
The exchange between Ewell and a psychiatrist is equally well-done. The movie is a classic. It is Jack Lemmon's The Apartment, done with an attractive woman and a man who, although not in full possession of his marbles, certainly is better adjusted than Lemmon's character. 

Overall, a must see for every film connoisseur out there. Stay tuned 'cause more Marilyn Monroe film reviews are just around the bend (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Niagara & Bus Stop just to name a few) 

 

Here's the movie trailer:

Some Like it Hot

We all like it hot, don't we?

Since this week we remember one of the most unfortunate Hollywood stories, I felt compelled to pay homage to the greatest female bombshell of all times: Miss Norma Jean Baker, AKA, Marilyn Monroe. She's been gone for half a century, yet we have her astonishing film career as a neverending testimony of her natural talent. Today I chose a persona favorite, 1959's Some Like It Hot.

In this 1959 classic, Curtis and Lemmon play two ragtag musicians scraping to make ends meet in Prohibition-era Chicago during the dead of winter who accidentally eyewitness a major gangland rubout (aka the St. Valentine's Day Massacre). Barely escaping with their lives (their instruments aren't quite as lucky), our panicky twosome is forced to take it on the lam. Scared out of their shoes (sorry), the boys don heels and dresses after they connect with an all-girl orchestra tour headed for sunny Florida. Killing two birds with one stone, they figure why not go south for the winter while dodging the mob? Once they hit the coast, they'll ditch both the band and their humiliating outfits.

Enter a major detour in the form of luscious Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane, given one of the sexiest (yet innocent) entrances ever afforded a star. Snugly fit in flashy 'Jazz Age' threads, a blast from the locomotive's engine taunts her incredible hour-glass figure as she rushes to catch her train to Florida. The boys, stopped dead in their high-heeled tracks by this gorgeous vision, decide maybe the gig might not be so bad after all. As the totally unreliable but engagingly free-spirited vocalist/ukelele player for the band, Sugar gets instantly chummy with the "girls" when they cover for her after getting caught with a flask of booze. As things progress, complications naturally set in - playboy Curtis falls for Monroe but has his "Josephine" guise to contend with, while Lemmon's "Daphne" has to deal with the persistently amorous attentions of a handsy older millionaire. 

Classy late 50's transvestites.

Sugar Kane.

What results is an uproarious Marx Brothers-like farce with mistaken identities, burlesque-styled antics, and a madcap chase finale, all under the exact supervision of director Billy Wilder, who also co-wrote the script. Lemmon and Curtis pull off the silly shenanigans with customary flair and are such a great team, you almost wish THEY ended up together! Curtis does a dead-on Cary Grant imitation while posing as a Shell Oil millionaire to impress Marilyn; Lemmon induces campy hilarity in his scenes with lecherous Joe E. Brown (who also gets to deliver the film's blue-ribbon closing line). As for the immortal Monroe, she is at her zenith here as the bubbly, vacuous, zowie-looking flapper looking for love in all the wrong places. Despite her gold-digging instincts, Monroe's Sugar is cozy, vulnerable and altogether loveable, getting a lot of mileage too out of her solo singing spots, which include the kinetic "Running Wild," the torchy "I'm Through With Love," and her classic "boop-boop-a-doop" signature song, "I Wanna Be Loved by You."

In the spotlight.

Treesome.

The film is dotted with fun, atmospheric characters. Pat O'Brien and George Raft both get to spoof their Warner Bros. stereotypes as cop vs. gangster, Joan Shawlee shows off a bit of her stinger as the by-the-rules bandleader Sweet Sue, Mike Mazurki overplays delightfully the archetypal dim-bulbed henchman, and, if I'm not mistaken, I think that's young Billy Gray of "Father Knows Best" fame (the role is not listed in the credits) playing a snappy, pint-sized bellhop who comes on strong with the "girls."

For those headscratchers who can't figure out why the so-called "mild" humor of "Some Like It Hot" is considered such a classic today, I can only presume that they have been brought up on, or excessively numbed by, the graphic, mindless toilet humor of present-day "comedies." There was a time when going for a laugh had subtlety and purity - it relied on wit, timing, inventiveness and suggestion - not shock or gross-out value. It's the difference between Sid Caesar and Andrew "Dice" Clay; between Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and Chris Farley and David Spade; between "I Love Lucy" and "Married With Children"; between Lemmon's novel use of maracas in the hilarious "engagement" sequence, and Cameron Diaz's use of hair gel in a scene that ANYBODY could have made funny. Jack Lemmon could do more with a pair of maracas than most actors today could do with a whole roomful of props. While "Some Like It Hot" bristles with clever sexual innuendo, today's "insult" comedies are inundated with in-your-face sexual assault which, after awhile, gets quite tiresome -- lacking any kind of finesse and leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. I still have hope...

Goddess.

In her last days.

Having ultimate faith in my fellow film devotees, THAT is why "Some Like It Hot" will (and should be) considered one of THE screwball classics of all time, and why most of today's attempts will (and should be) yesterday's news. 

Here's the movie trailer: