The Seven Year Itch

Kesäleski. US © 1955 Charles K. Feldman Group Productions. PC: 20th Century-Fox. P: Charles K. Feldman, Billy Wilder. D: Billy Wilder. SC: Wilder, George Axelrod – based on the play by Axelrod (1952). DP (DeLuxe, CinemaScope): Milton Krasner. M: Alfred Newman; Rachmaninov: The Second Piano Concerto; Chopsticks. PD: Lyle Wheeler, George W. Davis. COST: Travilla. Credits design: Saul Bass. ED: Hugh Fowler. N: Marilyn Monroe (The Girl), Tom Ewell (Richard Sherman), Evelyn Keyes (Helen Sherman), Sonny Tufts (Tom McKenzie), Robert Strauss (Kruhulik), Oskar Homolka (tri Brubaker), Victor Moore (the plumber). 105'. DVD (Finland): from Marilyn Monroe the Diamond Collection released by FS Film/Fox, 2002. Viewed at home in Helsinki, 24 Sep 2005. This lovely film has its drawbacks with too much talk and too much clumsiness in the ending. But Tom Ewell is great as the paperback editor, and Marilyn Monroe is at her best as The Girl Upstairs. With repeat viewings the funniness of the comedy focuses on the fact that Marilyn wouldn't mind if any of Richard Sherman's fantasies would come true, but the guy is too nervous to even notice. Of the two characters, Richard Sherman is a product of his time whereas Marilyn is modern/ageless. Of the limitations of the cardboard character, she creates something warm, radiating and wonderful. - The Diamond Collection DVD master is the best ever seen in home viewing. The colour is beautiful, the transfer brilliant. The extras include slightly longer versions of the bathtub sequence (the plumber drops his wrench to the tub and plunges his hand to the bottom to recover it from there to Marilyn's delight) and the subway grille scene.