The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seven-Year Itch is the showcase for what may be Marilyn Monroe’s most iconic character, and the character most aware of Monroe’s status as an icon. As the object of desire for her downstairs neighbor Richard (Tom Ewell), she is referred to only as “The Girl.” Near the end of the film, when a friend asks Richard who his blonde companion is, he exclaims, “Oh, wouldn't you like to know! Maybe it's Marilyn Monroe!” With this fourth-wall joke, the movie comes full circle in revering Monroe as the ideal woman: she is both the nameless embodiment of temptation for Richard and the theoretical standard for beauty that any man would understand in casual conversation.

As a comedy, The Seven-Year Itch is pretty one-note: Richard agonizes over his fidelity to his wife as he tries to suppress his desire for this luminous beauty, who for her part seems blissfully unaware of his anguish. Ewell is, at times, a charming lead (I am always amused by his suave Rachmaninoff fantasy). But the film drags when it strays away from Monroe, and Richard’s pained muttering soon becomes a bore. Though Monroe was clearly marketed as the main attraction for the film she is decidedly not the main character, a decision that feels increasingly peculiar as we spend long stretches watching Richard putter about.

The film is worthwhile only for Monroe’s towering comedic performance. She has scaled back the pouty cooing of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, holding this feminine fantasy at a more grounded wavelength even as she leans into the idea of Marilyn Monroe, ultimate male fantasy. The Girl is a thinker and a processor — she lets the viewer see the gears turning inside her head before bursting into an Earth-shattering smile. She looks at the world around her with wonder and yet appears wise beyond her years, as if she has figured out how to filter out all of the trivialities that wind people up into daily anxieties. Perhaps it’s because, like many Monroe characters, she is determined to see the best in others, and in that determination makes the best come out of them.

As The Girl, Monroe slyly demonstrates an awareness of her own past performances. When The Girl acts out for Richard a toothpaste commercial she did recently her eyes immediately get droopier, her mouth bigger, her voice seductive. She is playing Marilyn Monroe, or at least a version of Monroe audiences would have been used to seeing. It’s a funny in-joke, and a reminder from Monroe to the audience that she has always been in control of how she comes across on screen.

Any conversation about The Seven-Year Itch would not be complete without a mention of The Girl’s legendary white dress. No matter how flat the movie may be at times, Monroe wearing that dress is a truly timeless image. Watching the supposedly raunchy scene, in which she stands over the subway grate and allows the air to lift her dress, is surprisingly quaint. It’s a brief moment, and director Billy Wilder mostly cuts around any lingering shot of her exposed physique. Yet the scene is still cemented in the annals of cinema history, a testament to how knowing Monroe’s performance is about the power of suggestion.

Rating: 3.5/5