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The Seven Year Itch |
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Staring:
Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes, Sonny Tufts, Robert Strauss
Director:
Billy Wilder
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $6.00
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Description
It's a steamy summer in New York City and this scandalous, sexy comedy heats things up even more! A married man (Tom Ewell), whose wife and son are away for the summer, has his fidelity put to the test when a seductive starlet (Marilyn Monroe) moves in upstairs. Keeping his marriage vows in the face of her flirtations proves tough when challenged by the notorious "seven year itch." Faced with this provocative problem, he's victim to an outrageous mating dance filled with hilarious comedy!
Amazon.com
A married man, left alone during a hot summer, fantasizes madly about the impossibly gorgeous woman living in the upstairs apartment. When the woman is Marilyn Monroe, such fantasies are the stuff of epics, and The Seven Year Itch is a memorable laugh machine. Tom Ewell, repeating his role from George Axelrod's Broadway hit, plays the itchy protagonist, whose vivid imagination gets the better of him. When Monroe finally comes downstairs and becomes friends (confiding, among other things, that she keeps her undies in the icebox in this hot weather), imagination meets reality in a merciless attack on the male libido. Ewell's crack timing is matched by Monroe's zesty comic flair, and the scene in which her white dress is blown skyward by a passing subway train has entered the encyclopedia of great movie images. Director Billy Wilder adapted the play with Axelrod; if the film is not one of Wilder's signature works (Some Like It Hot and The Apartment would soon follow), it is nevertheless a smoothly crafted comedy. --Robert Horton
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HILARIOUS!!, 2009-03-19
Roaringly funny! I would give it ten stars if I could! I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. After watching, I have a new respect of Marilyn Monroe. Classic and ageless.
Not Just a Candle in the Wind ... A Connection., 2009-08-19
Either you understand what Marilyn Monroe "had" or you don't.
It wasn't just her beauty or her talent. Marilyn Monroe had a vulnerability, a *tragic fragility* spoke directly to the human condition. Because you can't understand tragedy unless you also understand Marilyn Monroe. ...
In his biography, Arthur Miller tells us that Marilyn was able to pick out the orphans in a crowd, she being an orphan herself. And one believes this, almost as an act of faith. Whern she's onscreen, regardless of the role, regardless of the quality of the picture: vulnerable and insecure, she has the ability to touch, to pick out in you, in you *your* vulnerabilities, *your* insecurities.
In a Nietzchean sense, when you see her onscreen and are, in turn, reminded of her tragic life, you fear for your own tragedy! Her unbearable defenselessness triggers a thought -- "Wouldn't it be tragic if *I* was that defenseless!"
What other actress was or is capable of doing that?
There were and are many, many actresses, especially in Marilyn's day, who tried to "get across" on screen what Marilyn got across. And none of them even came close.
When Marilyn speaks to the Tom Ewell character, the Everyman of the movie, she's speaking to every male in the audience - handsome or homely; smart or dumb; single or married; rich, poor or somewhere in the middle. ... Jayne Mansfield couldn't do that. Marlene Dietrich couldn't do that. Rita Hayworth couldn't do that. Angelina Jolie can't do that. Cameron Diaz can't do that. ... Not-even-close.
When daVinci painted a gloved hand, even though he didn't paint the hand in the glove, he wanted to know about the hand: its structure, its anatomy. In other words, he wanted to know what *moved* the glove. ... Knowing her life, knowing her tragedy, as just about everyone does, this is always in the audiences' mind when they see Marilyn Monroe onscreen -- what *moved* her, what was just below the surface. Ultimately, it's impossible to know that in a person, especially a complex, talented, sensitive person. But Marilyn gives us so many tantalizing clues! So many theories, so many ... possibilities.
And they all go back, I believe, to her "orphan roots." ... How does an orphan deal with the adult world? ... How do we all deal with an adult world? ... What makes us so unfit for living?
We are all, at heart, orphans. And Marilyn is there (put there by God or fate or random nature) to remind us of that.
Here's a question for you. Was that certain-something Marilyn Monroe "had" inescapably tied up with her physical beauty? Put another way: would she have lost what she had were she to have lived into her 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s? I could be wrong but I don't think so. As she grew older, her orphan-mentality would have been even more perceptive, more instinctive, more heartbreaking. Assuming she got to play serious roles, she could have been the greatest beauty + the greatest actress ever to appear in front of an audience.
You can't take your eyes off her! Men want to protect her, and rage against those who took advantage of her. And so do women.
If the studios who exploited Marilyn had given her half of what she earned for them, she could have bought every square inch of downtown Los Angeles.
As for "The Seven Year Itch," this movie is humorous in the truest sense of the word, because to be truly humorous, to have a sense of *humor,* one must also have a sense of *humanity,* and that equation, more than anything, is what Marilyn Monroe captured in her comedic performances.
She relates to the Tom Ewell character not simply as a sex object (as some reviewers here mistakenly think), but in a true and human way. Another less-talented actress could have easily turned Tom Ewell's "inner most thoughts" into something crude and dirty, but Marilyn never did that, not in any of her movies. Her natural, spontaneous *celebration* of sexuality is, at its heart, the celebration we feel when we "connect with others," when we discover someone doing exaclty what we're doing -- trying to figure out how, childlike, we can deal with the adult world.
That connection was Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe's most famous, 2009-05-31
This is a very good movie. Tim and I both enjoyed it, and i collect MM movies so this is one you got to have!
-Member girlfriend Jessica
Iconic Imagery, 2010-08-15
For those of you who thought Marilyn Monroe was a no-talent sex symbol, this movie will be an eye-opener. Teamed with Tom Ewell, Monroe adroitly abets Ewell's adolescent fantasies of his upstairs neighbor, remaining innocent all the while. This film is almost painfully funny, and this DVD is a fine copy with great sound and picture. Enjoy!
Marilyn Forever, 2009-11-01
Yes it's Marilyn in full swing. She and Tom Ewell really hit a home run!
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Fox
EAN: 0024543261155
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Label: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Manufacturer: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2006-05-22
Running Time: 105
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Theatrical Release Date: 1955-06-03 |
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