I never feel that Billy Wilder was truly comfortable making sex comedies like this and Some Like It Hot or The Apartment. There is a bitterness and cynicism within them that is sugar coated by the comedy but still present. It is almost like he couldn't quite let go of the serious issues that he explored in his earlier, more overtly dark films like Sunset Blvd and Stalag 17. And it is this bitterness, this corruption at the core of the films that make them resonant and pertinent to this day. His jaundiced detachment and arch commentary on the social mores of the time enables the films to remain fresh for new viewers.
The storyline is pretty inconsequential- a husband alone for the summer is tempted by the sexy neighbour- and the dialogue lacks the sparkle of Wilder's better comedies, but there are some great 'fantasy conversation' sequences and the whole thing zips along and wraps in just over ninety minutes. Oh and Monroe's sex-bomb act here is probably even better than in Some Like It Hot, though her opportunities for dry humour are less memorable than in that (the best moment occurs when she and Tom Ewell fall from a piano stool after he lunges at her "This has never happened to me before" he says, to which she replies "it happens to me all the time").
Lots of The Seven Year Itch centres around Tom Ewell and his character's monologues on love and fidelity and trust and attractiveness. It's funny stuff but the film is still completely stolen from him by Monroe. It really needs a Jack Lemmon or a William Powell to do the part justice given the magnetism of the female lead.
But it's still a great way to pass an hour and a half. 6/10
