Billy Wilder directed Seven Year Itch a romantic comedy co-written by him and George Axelrod from the 1952 play.
The film stars Marilyn Monroe at the peak of her popularity, and Tom Ewell, who reprised his stage role.
The feature contains one of the most iconic pop-culture images of the century: Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown upwards by a passing train.
The titular phrase, which refers to waning interest in monogamous relationship after 7 years of marriage, has been used by psychologists.
Richard Sherman is a middle-aged publishing exec in New York, blessed with overactive imagination. He is left alone, when wife Helen and son Ricky, are spending the summer in Maine.
When he returns home, he meets an unnamed woman, a commercial actress and former model. She rents the apartment upstairs while in town to make TV spots for toothpaste.
That evening, he is reading the manuscript of a book in which psychiatrist Dr. Brubaker claims that all men are driven to have extra-marital affairs in the seventh year of marriage.
Sherman has an imaginary conversation with Helen, trying to convince her, fantasy sequences, that he is irresistible to women, including his secretary, a nurse, and Helen’s bridesmaid, but she laughs it off.
When a potted tomato plant falls onto his lounge chair, the woman upstairs apologizes for knocking it off, and Richard invites her down for a drink.
He vacillates between a fantasy of her as a femme fatale overcome by his playing of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, and guilt at betraying his wife.
She comes down, wearing pink pajamas, and turns out to be naïve and innocent woman. She brings back champagne from her apartment and returns in white dress.
Richard, overcome by his fantasies, awkwardly grabs at her while they are playing “Chopsticks” on the piano, causing them to fall off the piano bench. He apologizes, but she says it happens to her all the time. Guilt-ridden, he asks her to leave.
In the end, Richard comes to his senses, and fearing his wife’s retribution (a dream), he tells the woman she can stay in his apartment, and leaves to catch the train to Maine.
The movie was very popular at the box-office.
Cast
Marilyn Monroe as The Girl
Tom Ewell as Richard Sherman (billed as Tommy Ewell)
Evelyn Keyes as Helen Sherman
Sonny Tufts as Tom MacKenzie
Robert Strauss as Kruhulik
Oscar Homolka as Dr. Brubaker
Marguerite Chapman as Miss Morris
Victor Moore as Plumber
Donald MacBride as Mr. Brady
Roxanne as Elaine
Carolyn Jones as Nurse Finch
