The Seven Year Itch
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Short description
Set during a hot New York summer, The Seven Year Itch follows Richard Sherman, a publishing executive who stays behind in the city while his wife and son leave for their holiday. After seven years of marriage, he finds his imagination running away with him, and his good intentions are tested when a blonde woman who lives in the apartment above his own enters his life. A mishap involving a falling flower pot brings them together, and he invites her in for a drink, after which his fantasies about the encounter compete with his fear of being found out. The comedy is based on George Axelrod's stage play of the same name.
Billy Wilder directed and produced the film with Charles K. Feldman, working from a screenplay he wrote with Axelrod. It was Wilder's ninth film as director, following Sabrina and preceding Witness for the Prosecution. Marilyn Monroe plays the neighbour, with Tom Ewell as Richard, Evelyn Keyes as his wife Helen, and Sonny Tufts, Robert Strauss and Oskar Homolka among the supporting cast.
Made for about two million dollars, the film took roughly twelve million worldwide. It holds a rating of 7 out of 10 on IMDb from 46,000 votes and 7 out of 10 on TMDB from around a thousand votes, while a critics' rating stands at 7.6 out of 10 from 32 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- A film adaptation of George Axelrod's play.
- Paramount acquired the rights to adapt the play, but after Billy Wilder left the studio, the project ended up at 20th Century Fox.
- George Cukor was the first director to be offered the opportunity to film this picture, but he turned down the project.
- During filming, Monroe suffered from depression as her nine-month marriage to baseball player Joe DiMaggio was coming to an end.
- The famous scene in which a sudden gust of air from a ventilation shaft lifts Marilyn Monroe’s skirt was originally filmed in Manhattan, at the corner of 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue, on September 15, 1954, at one o’clock in the morning. 5,000 onlookers whistled and cheered as Monroe repeatedly flubbed her lines. All this happened before the eyes of Joe DiMaggio, the actress’s then-husband. The footage was never used in the film because it was unusable due to the noise of the crowd. Film director Billy Wilder reshot the scene in a studio at 20th Century Fox. To achieve the desired result, he had to do 40 more takes.
- During filming, Monroe often made mistakes, mixed up and forgot her lines, which resulted in dozens of takes. As a result, the production of the film was delayed, and its budget swelled to $3.2 million – a considerable sum for that time.
- After seeing Walter Matthau's screen test for the role of Richard Sherman, Billy Wilder realized he had found the actor he needed. However, studio executives did not want to take a risk by casting a newcomer in the lead role. Wilder then chose Tom Ewell, who had played Sherman in the Broadway production of George Axelrod's play, which served as the basis for the film.
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