The Seven Year Itch.

As the school year comes to a close, and we turn our thoughts to summer vacation, the desire for a “good summer movie” once again rears its head. While there are any number of films that glorify summer and its advantages, The Seven Year Itch (1955) focuses on the more unfortunate aspects of the season; the heat, the upset in routine, and the horrible isolation that comes with working while the whole world seems to be on holiday.

Yet, underneath all this, there is the promise that, in summertime, the lovin' is easy!

Directed by that ultimate American auteur of the breezy comedy, Billy Wilder, this film has all the style, sophistication, and, above all, laughs that one would expect. Starting off with one of the cleverest title sequences pre-Woody Allen’s Bananas (1971), the film then swings into a delightful mock-documentary story of the pre-Columbian Manhattan native men sending their wives to the cooler lake country for the summer, and then chasing after the pretty single girls left on the heat-soaked island. This, of course, sets us up for the basic plot of the film. The Seven Year Itch captures the yearly ritual of the Grass Widower (or “summer bachelor”), a phenomenon well remarked upon in the middle of the last century (and very likely still a way of life for many in the smog-infested urban centers of North America).

Our hero, such as he is, Richard Sherman (wonderfully played by Tom Ewell, reprising his successful turn on Broadway in the original production of this George Axelrod play), has been happily married for seven years, and he has a lovely wife (Evelyn Keyes) and a rambunctious and typically obnoxious son (Butch Bernard). Sending his family away to the cool comfort of the cottage country, Richard plans on two months of drudgery on his own in Manhattan at the publishing company where he works. Above all, he swears, he will not fall into the madness that consumes his longer-married brethren, who see nothing but cards, wine, bad habits and, especially, dames while their spouses are out of the city. Richard, feeling above his sex and society, is determined to lay off the cigarettes, the booze and the junk food while his wife is away, and feels smug in his ability to mind his manners without a “keeper.”

This is, of course, until a single and friendly bombshell (played by icon Marilyn Monroe) moves into the apartment upstairs, and he discovers that he may very well be entering what his psychiatrist-author client, Dr. Brubaker (played by legendary Austrian comedic actor Oscar Homolka), calls the “seven year itch,” a mysterious condition that, during the seventh year of marriage, makes men become so overwhelmed with the urge to roam that Richard may not have any choice but to cheat!

What happens is for you to find out, but the ensuing temptations and struggles are played out with the sort of sly cosmopolitan tweaking that only Broadway and Billy Wilder (of 1960’s The Apartment fame) could create. In the 105 minutes of this movie, middle-class morality, the health craze, class divisions, psychoanalysis, gender barriers, the publishing/ advertising industry, and self-help fads are all sent up in the most delicious of ways. Most of all, the film highlights the dangers of letting imaginations fly out of control (when all the hero can see is the dangers of smoking)!

The picture is strengthened by the appearance of a few true greats in the world of character acting, such as the indomitable Donald McBride as Richard’s Grass Widower boss (“I wasn’t to bed last night, and I may not go to bed tonight!”), the endearingly annoying and angular Doro Merande as the dour vegetarian restaurant waitress and nudist (yes, this film is a bit ahead of its time!), and, especially, the always-wonderful Robert Strauss as the smarmiest superintendent this side of my last living quarters.

The Seven Year Itch is adorned with a cracker-jack wit, and dressed in some of the best lines to be found of its period (the one that really gets us every time is, while taking a long, forbidden puff, Richard sighs, “Oh, all those lovely, injurious tars and resins!,” and sounds like he is positively soaking in the process of mortgaging his future for a moment of perfect heaven). With always-surprising dream sequences, a charming score, an attitude towards its subject matter that is never crude or cruel, and a new take on the old problem of “roving eye syndrome,” this film is a sure winner.

Despite some staginess in having the character talk to himself throughout (which actually works well here), and some colour saturation issues, The Seven Year Itch is one of the few movies that I can honestly predict will be as fresh fifty years from now as it was when it was made.

This film was produced by 20th Century Fox, and is now readily available on DVD via the “Marilyn Monroe Diamond Collection,” but don’t let that turn you off. I have never been a Monroe fan of any standing, and I certainly favor Tom Ewell in this film (in his greatest role), but the ultimate ice cream blond is about as good as it gets in this film. She literally sparkles in this picture, and is as sweet and likeable in this as her later characters were dumb and sad. For the acting, writing and direction, as well as a general atmosphere of good fun, I can’t recommend this picture highly enough.

Rent it, and enjoy! (And stay away from wine, women and song this vacation season, or risk ending up like poor Richard, who needed a vacation to recuperate from his summer!)