MARILYN MONROE - The Seven Year Itch (1/12)

NOTES:
Not without a distinct ring of irony, the 9-month-old Marilyn Monroe-Joe DiMaggio marriage officially ended during this shoot.


The classic shot of Marilyn Monroe's dress blowing up around her legs as she stands over a subway grating was originally shot on Manhattan's Lexington Avenue at 52nd St. on Sept. 15, 1954 at 1 AM. 5000 onlookers whistled and cheered through take after take as Marilyn repeatedly missed her lines. This occurred in presence of an increasingly embarrassed and angry Joe DiMaggio, then Marilyn Monroe's husband. The original footage shot on that night in New York never made it to the screen; the noise of the crowd had made it unusable. Billy Wilder re-staged the scene on the 20th Century Fox lot, on a set replicating Lexington Avenue, and got a more satisfactory result. However, it took another 40 takes for Marilyn to achieve the famous scene.


Marilyn Monroe's lifelong bouts with depression and self-destruction took their toll during filming; she frequently muffed scenes and forgot her lines, leading to sometimes as many as 40 takes of a scene before a satisfactory result was produced.


Marilyn Monroe's constant tardiness and behavioral problems made the budget of the film swell to $1.8 million, a high price for the time. The film still managed to make a nice profit.


After seeing Walter Matthau's screen-test performance in the part of Richard Sherman, Billy Wilder believed he had found his lead man. But 20th Century Fox was unwilling to take the risk on a newcomer. That's when Wilder next turned his sights on the actor who had originated the role on Broadway, Tom Ewell.


The screenplay was adapted from the original Broadway show "The Seven Year Itch" which was written by George Axelrod. The original Broadway show starred Tom Ewell (who reprised his role as the imaginative Richard Sherman) and Vanessa Brown. When the project was moved from Paramount to 20th Century Fox, Brown was replaced by top sex symbol Marilyn Monroe for the film adaptation. Due to the Hays Office Production Code censorship rules, the racy dialogue and sexual innuendos were significantly toned down from the play.


Gary Cooper was considered for the role of Richard Sherman.


Like many other Manhattan husbands, Richard Sherman sends his wife and son to the country for the summer, while he stays behind to toil. Though reveling in temporary bachelor freedom of lifestyle, he's resolved not to carouse and philander like some others. But his overactive, over-vivid imagination goes into overdrive when a delightfully unconventional, voluptuous blonde moves in upstairs.