The Seven Year Itch

After its highly successful Broadway run, Billy Wilder brought George Axelrod’s play about the seven-year conjugal milestone to the screen, grudgingly removing explicit moments of adultery due to restrictions imposed by the Hays Code. And yet, under the direction Wilder, an Ernst Lubitsch disciple, the story of a married man infatuated with an attractive new neighbour during a scorching New York summer only grew sexier and more provocative, thanks to the iconic sensuality and comedic genius of Marilyn Monroe. Identified only as “The Girl,” and dressed in a white dress that famously fluttered in the breeze over a subway grate, Monroe showcased her power in Technicolour to both incite and mock the childish, foolish desires of a man incapable of seeing his own absurdity.