The Seven Year Itch
1955 Directed by Billy Wilder
Synopsis
It TICKLES and TANTALIZES! - The funniest comedy since laughter began!
With his family away for their annual summer holiday, Richard Sherman decides he has the opportunity to live a bachelor's life. The beautiful but ditzy blonde from the apartment above catches his eye and they soon start spending time together - maybe a little too much time!
Cast
Popular reviews
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Did Billy Wilder know, when setting out to make "The Seven Year Itch," that he'd end up with a movie this creepy? I came into it expecting something light-hearted and with just enough sexual innuendo to allow Marilyn Monroe to become MARILYN. What I got was a movie where every male character is driven bat-shit crazy by lust as Monroe sits idly by orchestrating everything like a blonde Prospero.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that Wilder knew what he was doing. Just look at Tom Ewell, the male lead whose steadfast fidelity to his wife is tested by the knockout upstairs. Everything about him is really, really off-putting: his hang-dog expression, his vocal mannerisms, his disturbingly detailed fantasies, or the way…
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Monroe's performance is timeless, but little else in this middling Wilder comedy has aged well: Ewell's chattering narration, the scenario's moral murkiness, the Indian prologue and the stagey supporting turns are all bigger sticking points now than you imagine they might have been 50 years ago. But still, it has *that* girl, in *that* dress, standing over *that* vent, so it gets a pass.
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Tom MacKenzie: «What blonde in the kitchen?»
Richard Sherman: «Wouldn't you like to know! Maybe it's Marilyn Monroe!»The blu-ray arrived in my mail a few days back, so I decided to give it a rewatch.
This was never among my favorite Wilders, mainly because of one single element; Tommy Ewell's narration. Sometimes voice-over can really destroy a film, it would be taking it too far to say that's the case here. But Wilder (and Axelrod) decided in this script to let the narration come from the lead character. And, simply, it doesn't work. When Ewell is with another character, be it Marilyn Monroe or for instance in the wonderful scene with the psychiatrist (Oskar Homolka), the dialogue flows like…
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Hilarious. Monroe is about as charming a person can be and Tom Ewell plays his paranoia, delusion and arrogance brilliantly. Wilder does it again.
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I watched this for the first time and I have one thing to say about it:
Marilyn, I love you!
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I only watched about 30 minutes of this before the soliloquy style became too offensive. Sadly, that means that Marilyn barely had a chance to appear. Maybe when I'm in a more charitable mood, I'll attempt to watch it again.
Possibly this film deserves a bit more latitude than I've given it, since the director has clearly taken some bold risks with unconventional techniques both in acting style and cinematography. It has a "zany" vibe right from the start. Most of these risks end up being distracting and even irritating.
Certainly, this is not a "timeless" film, as one reviewer has stated. The set and actors are very theatrically staged, and the 1950s trappings are intrusively obvious, from the unrealistic behaviour of the pastel-clad extras to the flagrant treatment of women and cigarettes as sex objects.
Not great.
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Hilarious. Monroe is about as charming a person can be and Tom Ewell plays his paranoia, delusion and arrogance brilliantly. Wilder does it again.
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Todo el mundo ha tenido que haber visto al menos una vez, alguna referencia de la escena de Marilyn y su vestido blanco, la cual ha sido innumerables veces tanto imitada, como parodiada.
No es la gran cosa, no tiene una gran historia que desarrollar, y el papel de Tom Ewell, narrando todo constantemente, tiende a ser bastante fastidioso.
Suele volverse un poco aburrida a causa de lo monótono del asunto, y la falta de banda sonora. Lo realmente cautivador, son las escenas en las que aparece Marilyn Monroe, por supuesto. Más allá de eso, no es nada muy memorable. Lo que sí recuerdo, son los créditos principales, por Saul Bass.
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Fantastic comedy. Billy Wilder really knows comedy. There wasn't a dull moment in this film. Monroe and Ewell play off each other well. Very fun film.
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Brīnišķīga, vienkārša un naivi ļoti simpātiska komēdija, kas darbojas kā organiska Marilyn Monroe sejas mīmiku un ķermeņa valodas reklāma. Lai arī cik mehāniski un nedabīgi tas izklausītos. Perfekta filma.
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It's just elegant! I enjoyed this but it seems to me, once again, that Monroe carries the film. Tom Ewell's fantasies are amusing, but it's Marilyn that transforms an average film into an above-average film.
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Actually I didnt like this movie that much..but it has very interesting things :D :) its even a kinda sweet movie.
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The first Billy Wilder film that I've disliked. I find it hard to pinpoint what it is exactly that rubbed me the wrong way in this film. I enjoyed the premise, Marilyn Monroe gives a solid performance, and the Saul Bass title sequence is pretty fantastic. Yet Tom Ewell is such an unlikeable jerk in this film; his fantasies are really quite disturbing, in fact, the attitudes of all the men in the film are creepy.
The narrative of the film is told completely from Richard's (Ewell) perspective, and so you're trapped with his unreliable account of events. Although I enjoy an unreliable narrator when it's done well (Memento, Fight Club), in my opinion, this film suffers severely because of… -
Another gem from Billy Wilder, with two charismatic performances, and dozens of funny moments.
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Decent comedy. Didn't like the constant on-screen narration.