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It would be Russ Meyer, wouldn't it, who sees The Seven Year Itch and envisions a full anecdote about the plumber who helps with the bombshell's stuck toe. Eve Meyer in trench coat and black beret and red scarf, a sort of gumshoe or hard-boiled observer, her Adam is the meek Mr. Fix-It (Anthony-James Ryan) with an arsenal of mops and plungers. He goes about his business with the blonde on his trail, she materializes along the way as secretary, nurse and waitress. "Only a superman refuses to be blinded by the barrage of beauty," the handyman is just a mortal stumbling through temptation, wandering into the ladies' room only to get stuck in the toilet. (When a flash of nudity transpires at the laundromat, he naturally has his back turned.) The ancient gag of the tiny sign atop the painted pole gets the serene delivery it deserves, the surrealism of an arboreal cesarian operation is set to Verdi for the benefit of Makavejev (Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator). The drowning alarm clock and the humping pinball machine, "new worlds to conquer," even Dalí's paint pistol figures in the Termite Terrace charm. (The atelier sequence showcases the Méliès streak that Andrew Sarris detected in Meyer, and establishes the director as his own best critic: "Modern art must go. But where?") The schmo ponders the cherries atop twin ice-cream scoops vis-à-vis the barmaid's cleavage and doesn't dare to dig into either, not even a striptease version of It Happened One Night's hitchhiking scene gets the jalopy going. Dreiser's "fire sign" announces the punchline, so coruscating that even the frowning Olympia on the wall has to smile. "Beneath it all, I know there was a message in this."
--- Fernando F. Croce |