The Seven Year Itch (1955)

A funny film, though not Wilder's best, possibly due to the limits forced here by the censor board. Monroe is at her peak here, and Tom Ewell reprises his role well from the broadway stage.

Tom Ewell is the happily married "Richard" whose family have gone away for a few weeks leaving him all alone with his manuscript and soft drinks that sound like gut-rot in a bottle! His wife "Helen" always calls him at 10pm so he must stay awake til then, and whilst waiting his vivid imagination often kicks in! That's only more concentrated when his new upstairs neighbour (Marilyn Monroe) calls in to say hello. He's smitten! She is the epitome of his desires and as their friendship blossoms, he finds his fantasies become racier and racier, more and more fanciful and all entirely unfulfilled! What now ensues might have worked better for me had Ewell been a bit better an actor, but he doesn't really deliver very well here and we wait way too long for Monroe to come and brighten things up. She has excellent timing, and looks every inch the apple of the eye as she innocently and charmingly drives poor old "Richard" to the brink! The comedy is decently written though resorts a little too much to slapstick for it's execution and I thought the joke became just a little bit laboured after an hour or so of slightly repetitive and contrived scenarios. Not one of Billy Wilder's better films, even if a passing subway train gives us some cinema history. A sort of parody of "Beauty and the Beast", perhaps, but all just a little too tame.