The Seven Year Itch

Peak Marilyn. She's funny, sexy, and absolutely charming, and it's also of course got that iconic moment over the subway grate. I've also always liked Tom Ewell in this. As silly as his character is and as stagey as his monologues are, I think he's funny and satirizes married men with wandering eyes pretty well. He has ridiculous fantasies, clumsily tries to put the moves on a younger woman, and is wracked by guilt. I absolutely love the scene where he plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 to set the mood (both in fantasy and reality), and how it was incorporated into the soundtrack. Another nice little moment is when he's fixing a couple of Tom Collins for the two of them, going on about how it couldn't have been chance for them to have met, while she's talking to herself about needing to return a fan to a store. I like how spare the story is, and the various one-liners in the script. Director Billy Wilder lamented making the film under the Production Code, and it is a shame that some things were censored, but Monroe's appeal can't be denied. I like it for what it is, a product of its time for sure, and a harmless sex comedy.

Favorite line: "Miss Morris, I'm perfectly capable of fixing my own breakfast. As a matter of fact, I had a peanut butter sandwich and two whiskey sours."