They haven’t yet, but footage of the original Seven Year Itch shoot has emerged, courtesy of the family of a New York home movie enthusiast. Per The New York Times, Jules Schulback‘s family discovered a grocery bag full of old film in a back room of his house while they were preparing to move. Looking through the home movies, they found three minutes of footage that the family’s pater familias had long claimed to have shot: Marilyn Monroe on the sewer grate, plus shots of her apparently preparing for the shoot. A furrier by trade and a cameraman by hobby, Schulback had heard that Monroe was filming in his neighborhood, and so went out to capture some footage.
The Times has released a short segment of Schulback’s work, giving a rare glimpse at film history, and also at how incredibly creepy it must have been to see hundreds of men stand, panting, around a solitary woman, waiting for her thighs and underwear to be exposed by a blowing fan. (Not to overly criticize the now 92-year-old Schulback, but his camera work is pretty crotch-focused, as well.) For her part, Monroe looks bored with the whole thing, although in another sequence, she flashes a famous smile when she notices the camera pointing her way. Existing only in excerpts, Schulback’s film isn’t exactly a substitute for the original version of Wilder’s outdoor take on the scene. But it is an interesting window into cinematic history, and how wearying the life of a world-famous movie sex symbol must have been in 1954.
