TxMike

This 1955 movie was filmed in 1954, Marilyn Monroe was 28, playing 22-yr-old "The Girl", a model who sometimes had small appearances on TV. Below her apartment was a small family, the husband was 45-yr-old Tom Ewell playing 38-yr-old Manhattan book editor Richard Sherman. He has been married for seven years and now has sent his wife and young son away to Maine for the summer.

The title is a reference to a term coined by a researcher who wrote that married men often develop that itch to stray about the time they have been married for seven years and Sherman is starting to feel that. Most of the movie is his meeting the pretty and congenial Girl from upstairs and their developing a friendship. He has visions and dreams of sort, in a type of lust for her but she just seems to enjoy their friendship, including a few kisses on the lips.

No question this movie was made to showcase the beauty and talent of Monroe. This is the movie with the famous scene where her white dress gets blown by the grate below. Even though she often played a somewhat "dumb" blonde in real life she was actually very intelligent. And a much better actress than many want to give her credit for. Too bad that she died young at 36.

This is a very nicely entertaining movie.

I remember back in the late 1990s when this came out, a heard a little about it and decided that it wasn't the kind of movie I was interested in. Now, in modern times, it has come out as a Criterion Collection release and of value is the Blu-Ray extra that has the writer-director commenting on why he made this movie. I borrowed it from my public library.

It wasn't shot with conventional movie cameras and moviemaking techniques. Some of it is very clear, much of it is of sub-par film quality. That doesn't matter so much if these is a good story. But in this movie there is no story.

The writer-director commented in 2024 when he was around 50. When he made the movie he was in his early 20s. As he explains it scenes just sort of drop down out of his memory or imagination. Each is standalone but according to him there is an overall connection but he won't tell what that is.

I am surprised that the movie has as high a rating as it does. I don't rate it highly at all, the characters are all moronic, the locations are unattractive, the inside of homes are dirty and cluttered, the "characters" engage in very unusual and sometimes silly activities, the language is beyond foul, even from the smaller boys and girls.

A running theme involves cats. The type that people have as pets. One scene has a cat hanging from its feet and being beaten with a stick. Another has a cat apparently being drowned. Another has a boy with a sack full of dead cats that he brings to sell to a local butcher. (A disclaimer at the end says no animals were harmed, that puppets were used for some scenes.)

Am I glad that I took the time to see it? Yes, I am, just out of morbid curiosity. I find myself wondering why so many who watched this movie give it a favorable rating. To me it is a piece of junk. But it does have that pearl of wisdom, "Life is great, without it you'd be dead."

I admit, when this movie was being advertised just about two years ago I told myself I had zero interest in seeing it. And I made no effort to see it. Until today when my wife and I were looking for something to stream.

Now I can confidently say "This movie is a lot better than I thought it would be" and that is always a welcome surprise. A bonus is that it was inspired by a true story of four elderly Tom Brady fans going to Superbowl 51 in Houston (where we happen to live for the past 38 years).

The gist of the story is, these four friends call themselves "80 For Brady" because most of them are over 80 and all of them are big Brady fans and Patriots fans. They even have special jerseys they wear when watching games on TV, all with number 12 on them.

It is 2017 and the Superbowl 51 in Houston is coming up. Two local radio jockeys have a contest, the best story from the fans will win four tickets to the game. A few days later one of the ladies produces four tickets and they are off.

Part of the humor here is that not everything goes smoothly. But the four veteran actresses are in fine form and a fantasy conclusion to the game, which required the Patriots to come back from a big deficit, is entertaining. Actual NFL footage from that game is used, and several Patriots players, including Brady and Gronk, are characters in the locker-room after the game. In fact Brady was the producer for the movie.

Good entertainment, inspired by real people and real events, what's not to like?