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Sunday, Jan 18, 2015
7pm
[no title]
Billy Wilder's comedies of the mid-fifties and early sixties are time-capsule material; indeed, each begins as a pseudo-documentary. Tom Ewell's publisher/adman, Richard Sherman, whose desire for instant gratification turns him into a sort of b.e.m. (bug-eyed-monster), comes upon a book claiming that men, perhaps even normal men, have extra-marital affairs by the seventh year of marriage. Sherman's ready for his seventh inning stretch and just upstairs is the new tenant, literally referred to as The Girl, a perfect foil for a guy's downfall, played with sexy aplomb by Marilyn Monroe. The censors did their best to put calamine lotion on that itch, but TSYI still has a very rash scene or two, including the enactment of Ewell's seduction fantasies with a duet of “Chopsticks” and The Girl's bubble bath while an elderly plumber goes to work on her pipes. But perhaps most signature is Monroe's bout with the breeze from a subway grate. Her billowing white skirt stands as one of the iconic images of fifties cinema. Definitely an image with legs.
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