The Seven Year Itch

This screening has been canceled.

THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH 70th Anniversary – classic Marilyn Monroe comedy screens at Laemmle’s historic Royal Theatre on June 25.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 70th anniversary of THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955), which features one of the signature pop culture images of the 20th century and of its star, Marilyn Monroe (standing astride a subway grate while her skirt billows up to her shoulders). Billy Wilder produced, directed, and, with George Axelrod, cowrote the film version of Axelrod’s smash Broadway comedy about marital infidelity. It provided a prime vehicle for Monroe. The film screens one night only, Wednesday, June 25 at 7:00 P.M. at the historic Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. Film critic Stephen Farber and film writer Michael McClellan will introduce the film.

Axelrod’s play opened on Broadway in 1952 and ran almost three years before being adapted for the screen. Seasoned stage actor Tom Ewell scored a major career hit and a Tony Award for his portrayal of a philandering New York publisher who agonizes over straying with “the Girl Upstairs” while his wife and young son are on a two-month summer vacation in Maine. Wilder wanted to cast newcomer Walter Matthau, but Ewell was permitted to reprise his role when Monroe was cast as “the Girl” and the vehicle was rewritten to showcase her. Despite this shift, Ewell won a Golden Globe for his skillful comedic performance, the best of his career.

Wilder had taken on the project for its farcical approach to adultery but was “straitjacketed” by the censorious Production Code and could not sidestep its restrictions as he first thought. Therefore, the emphasis was placed on Monroe’s character, which some reviewers felt unbalanced the story. However, the film is still told from Ewell’s point of view, and even though his milquetoast is no match for Monroe, their innocent sexual bantering still registers, with his lustful fantasies countered by Monroe’s sweet sexuality. Perhaps the best way to view the film is as a satire on mid-century morals and 1950s sexism. Wilder takes a somewhat broad approach, and the light cartoonish style works effectively to generate copious laughs.

Monroe is delightful and incandescent, and the film, a major box-office hit, remains memorable because of her. At the time of its original release in 1955, Delmore Schwartz in The New Republic called her a different type of screen siren, representing “a new attitude, which Miss Monroe embodies with such natural and joyous ebullience.” Who could argue? The subway grate image, depicted in a 26-foot statue, Forever Marilyn, by artist Seward Johnson in 2011, further immortalized Monroe’s legacy as the greatest star in movie history. You can currently see the statue in downtown Palm Springs, and now you can see the movie that inspired it on June 25 at the Royal. It is a perfect opportunity to see on the big screen the magnetism of Marilyn Monroe that resonates to this day.