The Seven Year Itch is another step down in the career of [Billy Wilder]. (p. 22)

[The Broadway play] was a simple, sometimes funny comedy enriched by nuances and subtle insights into the American "psychological" approach to the battle of sexes.

The screen version cannot advertise the same quality…. [Marilyn Monroe] was apparently forbidden to make the slightest attempt at acting: she has been built into the film as a symbol of sex, in a definite geometry of solids, the display reaching a paroxysm that leads us to suspect a streak of sadistic satire in Wilder's direction. Thus one follows the buildup with a great deal of curiosity, because it may be logically anticipating an unpredictable climax with an equally unpredictable creative contribution by the director. But after such a titillating game of senses,—which soon degenerates into rather cheap effects,—everything collapses…. The triumph of the pharisaic hypocrisy...