The Seven Year Itch (1955) – 2/5

Marilyn Monroe in the kitchen

„The Seven Year Itch“ is an American English-language film from 1955, so this one is close to its 70th anniversary now or maybe it happened already depending on when you read this review of mine. The sad thing about this is that the cast members here and also the crew are long gone and this includes of course Marilyn Monroe too, the female protagonist in this one and she soon would have had her 100th birthday, but we all know she went way too early. But before I get to the cast, let’s look at a few general facts from the outcome here. Ignore the black-and-white shots on imdb as this is a color film, which is definitely not always the case for this era. The director and also one of the two writers is Billy Wilder, slightly under the age of 50 here, who had already won three of his six Oscars. The other three followed little over five years later, all for the same movie. He was definitely a huge star in Hollywood at that point already. So was Monroe, even if her popularity kept peaking afterwards. The other film she made with Wilder is certainly the more known from the two. I can see why and I was baffled at times how underwhelming these over 100 minutes here were. I expected better and I mostly blame the screenplay. George Axelrod is Wilder’s co-writer here and for him this film is maybe the second-biggest career achievement only topped by the movie for which he scored an Oscar nomination a few years later. Anyway, if you look at the poster and cast order, you realize that Monroe is at the center of it all. Which makes not really too much sense because she is without a doubt only the second lead here, if a lead at all.

Tom Ewell is the protagonist at the middle of the story, the one the film is all about. It is a bit surprising to see he got to play the main character in a Wilder movie at that point as he was not a huge star and this film here is by far his most known I guess. He also had some alright successes on the small screen though. Especially early on here, it is nobody’s film but his. He basically walks around and keeps talking, which is supposed to feel as if he is talking to himself about what (not) to do, but it is fairly obvious he is mostly talking to the audience there. It was not handled too well though. Felt a bit forced and I don’t blame Ewell there at all. He tried his best and I am not mad he won a Golden Globe for his portrayal here. Maybe a bit exaggerated too though. Monroe, however, managed to get a BAFTA nomination, the first of two from her career and thus also one of her biggest successes, even if she did not win. She also received a Laurel, definitely too much there, and Wilder himself was nominated for a DGA Award and (with his co-writer) for a WGA Award too. Not one of the guilds‘ brightest days. Anyway, now let’s finally look into the movie: First of all, I must say that the German subtitles I had during this original English-language watch were extremely poor. Some of the stuff that was told was translated in a completely different manner. One example early on was when the protagonist was fantasizing about what he would do to two other characters and one of them is his secretary and there the words I read were absolutely not what he was saying in the original. But this is no criticism against the movie theater that picked these subs, more against the translator whoever it was as (s)he did not lack the ability to understand, but just came up with creations that went way too far away from the original. There were so many other examples.

What was also fairly poor was how they translated the short form of the main character’s first name. His wife’s friend or whoever that man was called the protagonist Dicky and that is a short form for the name Richard and in the German translation it was used „Dicki“, which is a not totally nice term for a fat person, so the man seemed more unlikable in the translated version then, which is really not the job of a translator. Richie they should have gone for. I wonder if it was handled equally awful in the dubbed version, but okay, let’s leave it at that. I just mentioned the secretary and she is one of three stunning females in this movie. The actress‘ name is Marguerite Chapman. Another stunning female is Carolyn Jones and she even became an Oscar nominee not much later, so she achieved something that Monroe never did. The latter is then number three, but it is not necessarily in this order, even if Monroe did not impress here as much physically as she did in other films. Then again, I have never been much into blondes, so it is not a huge surprise. Speaking of Oscar nominees, this really fits the supporting characters here as Ewell is also not an Academy Award nominee, but Austrian actor Oskar Homolka is and already was back in 1955. Sadly, his scene is among the weakest from the film for me, but this also had to do with the translation as they never used the word „rape“ in this film, after all it is a comedy, but the German term for that was used constantly in the translation and this did not fit at all as in a way it was described as rather harmless, even if the main character was indeed worried about his behavior. Just one of quite a few scenes where I felt the comedy from the film as not aged too well. The janitor was alright I suppose. But another scene that did almost nothing for me was then when the hunky buddy from the protagonist’s wife shows up in the end. I do not even remember anymore if this was just another fictitious sequence in the protagonist’s head or if he actually knocked the man out there. The good thing from this scene was that it had one of the film’s most memorable inclusions when the male protagonist talks about a blonde in his kitchen and actually mentions Marylin Monroe by name there. That was so playful in terms of mixing reality with fiction and by that I do not mean the aforementioned protagonist’s fantasies.

Monroe, however, says on one occasion that her character here is aged 22 it was I think and thus at least five years younger than the actress when she appeared in this film and I must say that she really does not look 22 here. But yeah, she was a huge icon at that point and got away with it. The protagonist’s fantasies were in theory a creative inclusion here and it is something we see to this day on television („Family Guy“ e.g.) and in theatrical releases, so the film was a bit ahead of its time. The problem is only that these fantasies never felt really funny or smart or as if they added quality to the story. This was disappointing because they were really used so many times. It already starts with the main character fantasizing about how irresistible he is to women in general, no matter if it is his secretary, his nurse or a friend of his wife. Semi-true I suppose. The one then in which he fantasizes about his wife being about to make out with the hunky guy was not much better. And what was even worse than these segments were the protagonist’s reactions immediately afterwards where you could only wonder why he somehow thinks these are even true and factual, if he actually has a mental disorder of some kind. It was pretty bizarre. At the beginning, it made me almost a bit angry how he just would not start reading the book, always gets interrupted. A funnier moment a little later is when he thinks about the rumor spreading that there may be something going on between him and Monroe’s character. With that I mean how we see her in the bathtub telling it to the repair guy and he then it to others etc. By the way, one of the people he is telling it to was the nudism-supporting women from the vegetarian restaurant that we already see at the start. Honestly, her elaboration on why there would be no wars if clothes had never been invented was maybe better than any piece of dialogue Monroe had in this film. I kept thinking about it for a while afterwards and there is more truth to it than you initially think.

But what I actually wanted to say is that this sequence when the news is spread is also only good until it ends and until the the man gets kinda crazy and needs to call his wife immediately to make sure she does not know. This was poor again. What was good though was the train of thought in the protagonist’s mind about how it may not be the best idea if a blonde sneaks out of his apartment at six in the morning trying not to be seen. But anyway, for every good inclusion here, there are two disappointing ones. The title I am also not really big on. The concept was part of the plot in the second half, but it never felt never vital or crucial enough story-wise to name the film like that. I guess I am getting closer to the end of my review now. I would like to drink some raspberry soda now as well and I guess if there is anything interesting to the outcome here, then maybe the inclusion of contemporary elements, how cheap everything was back then. Inflation galore nowadays. In-between, you also could not be too sure if the man is going to stay with his wife or maybe even leave her for Monroe’s character. They would have made his wife unfaithful though for that. The most suggestive thing there was perhaps when Monroe’s character kissed him on one occasion and he kisses her back. Weren’t there even two kisses from her side? I guess so with the one that he is supposed to deliver to his wife. She was surely playing with him a bit too, even if her character was acting all on the innocent side. Most likely not a strong female character overall. I mean we do not even learn her name. And if we look at the exact ending then, it feels hard to believe that this blonde bombshell character is really the one to convince the main character (or men in general) not to fantasize about her, but instead go and adore their wives. A bit of a forced happy ending to make things right and get in all the harmony they could. I give this film a thumbs-down. The start to the Monroe retrospective could have been better. Not recommended.