Billy Wilder's comedies of the fifties-early sixties (see also April 21) are time-capsule material; indeed, each begins as a pseudo-documentary. Tom Ewell's publisher/ad-man (he makes sexy covers for paperback classics like Little Women), whose desire for instant gratification turns him into a sort of b.e.m. (bug-eyed-monster), alone makes The Seven-Year Itch apt material for Independent Group-analysis; but it was the skirt-billowing image of Marilyn Monroe, as The Girl, that figured in IG exhibitions along with Robby the Robot. And the film qua film-the CinemaScope-Technicolor totality-turned up in writings such as Reyner Banham's essay "Vehicles of Desire" (1955): "As an expendable, replaceable vehicle of popular desires, (the automobile) clearly belongs with the other dreams that money can buy, with Galaxy, The Seven-Year Itch...The motor car...exhibits the same creative thumbprints-finish, fantasy, punch, professionalism, swagger."