Plot

When his family goes away for the summer, a hitherto faithful husband with an overactive imagination is tempted by a beautiful neighbor.

With his family away for their annual summer holiday, New Yorker Richard Sherman decides he has the opportunity to live a bachelor's life--to eat and drink what he wants and basically enjoy life without his wife and son. The beautiful but ditzy blonde from the apartment above his catches his eye and they start spending time together. It's all innocent, but there's little doubt that Sherman is attracted to her. However any lust he feels is played out in his own imagination.—garykmcd

Richard Sherman, a happily-married Manhattan husband, father, and over-imaginative publisher, has just sent his wife and son to Maine for the summer; he stays behind to make money during the exhausting dog days of August. Determined to stay out of trouble--and, above all, faithful--poor Sherman has a chance encounter with the embodiment of temptation instead: the statuesque, Marilyn Monroe-beautiful upstairs neighbor. And, bewitched, Richard gets the "itch". Can the summer bachelor resist The Girl's charms and the overwhelming urge to taste the forbidden fruit?—Nick Riganas

Like many other Manhattan husbands, Richard Sherman sends his wife and son to the country for the summer, while he stays behind to toil. Though reveling in temporary bachelor freedom of lifestyle, he's resolved not to carouse and philander like some others. But his overactive, over-vivid imagination goes into overdrive when a delightfully unconventional, voluptuous blonde moves in upstairs.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

A professional reader for a publishing company must endure the dog days of a New York summer alone while his wife and son spend time at an oceanside resort. To pass the lonely hours, the overly-imaginative book reader fantasizes about a young model who is lodging temporarily in the upstairs apartment.—Jeanne Baker <jbaker@erim.org>

The Island of Manhattan gets its name from the Native Americans of the Manhattan tribe. The men of the Manhattan tribe had a tradition to send their wives and children to the cooler highlands in the month of July, while they stayed behind to attend to business and to ogle at beautiful, nubile women. 500 years later and still nothing has changed in Manhattan.

Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell), a publishing executive with an overactive imagination, sends his wife Helen (Evelyn Keyes) and son Ricky (Butch Bernard) to Maine for the summer. Sherman works for Brady & Co, who specialize in publishing pocket editions of the old classics. Mr. Brady (Donald MacBride) is his boss. Miss Morris (Marguerite Chapman) is his assistant at work. Sherman is determined not be like other men and chase after skirts while his wife is away.

When he returns home with the kayak paddle Ricky accidentally left behind at the train station, he meets The Girl (Marilyn Monroe), a model who is renting the apartment upstairs while she is in town to make television spots for a brand of toothpaste. That evening, while proofing a book in which psychiatrist Dr. Brubaker (Oskar Homolka) claims that a significant proportion of men (84.6%, which increases to 91.8% in the summer months) have extra-marital affairs in the seventh year of marriage, he has an imaginary conversation with Helen, trying to "convince" her, in three fantasy sequences, that he is irresistible to women, including his secretary (Miss Morris claims that she makes mistakes in her typing as she is hopelessly in love with Sherman and cannot concentrate on her work and she tore his shirt in her passion. Helen says that shirt was torn at the laundry), a nurse Miss Finch (Carolyn Jones) (Sherman claims that Finch was the night nurse after his appendix operation. She declared her love for Sherman and he had to call the hospital staff to take her away), and Helen's bridesmaid Elaine (Roxanne) (Sherman claims that he had a passionate kissing session with her at the beach), but she laughs it off. A tomato plant then crashes into his lounge chair; The Girl apologizes for accidentally knocking it over, and Richard invites her to come down for a drink. The Girl says that she will right down after she gets under underwear from the ice box where she keeps them when it is too hot.

While waiting for her to arrive, he vacillates between a fantasy of her as a Femme Fatale overcome by his playing of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto on his piano, and guilt at betraying his wife. Mr. Kruhulik (Robert Strauss) interrupts Sherman's fantasy when he arrives to pick the bedroom rugs for cleaning (as they are moth ridden), as he had promised Helen. Sherman manages to throw Kruhulik out of the house, before The Girl arrives.

When she appears, she is wearing pink pants and suit and turns out to be a naive and innocent young woman who works as a television toothpaste spokeswoman and recently appeared - highly enticingly - in a popular photo almanac. The girl describes how she is struggling with the New York heat and slept in the bathtub, but her toe got stuck in the faucet as it wont stop dripping. So, she called the plumber from the phone in the bathroom, and he ran right over after he explained the situation to her. The Girl never understood why the plumber ran over to help on a Sunday.

After repeatedly viewing her revealing pose his overactive imagination begins to run wild. On his suggestion, she brings back a bottle of champagne from her apartment and returns in a seductive white dress. Sherman reveals to her that he is married, but this has no adverse effect on her. The Girl says that she feels safe with married men. Richard, overcome by his fantasies, awkwardly grabs at her while they are playing a "Chopsticks" duet on the piano, toppling them off the piano bench. He apologizes, but she says it happens to her all the time. Guilt-ridden, he asks her to leave.

Over the next few days, they grow closer. Helen continuously calls Richard, asking him to send over the paddle so Ricky can use the kayak, but Richard is repeatedly distracted. His waning resolve to resist temptation in all of its many forms fuels his fear that he is succumbing to the 'Seven Year Itch'.

He seeks out Dr. Brubaker for help, but to no avail. Brubaker takes one look at the girl's magazine picture from US Camera and tells Sherman not to use the piano bench for his next attempt.

His imagination then runs wild: The Girl tells a plumber (Victor Moore) how Richard is "just like The Creature from the Black Lagoon"; the plumber repeats her story to the horrified patrons of the restaurant Richard frequents; Helen and Ricky watch The Girl on TV as she warns the women of New York City about "this monstrous man" named Richard Sherman; the Shermans' handsome neighbor, Tom MacKenzie (Sonny Tufts), arranges for him and Helen to be alone on a hayride. Sherman is livid at Helen's infidelity and calls The Girl and invites her for dinner. They go for a movie together, and on their way back, there is the famous subway scene blowing up the Girl's skirt. Richard then reluctantly lets The Girl sleep in his air-conditioned apartment so she can get some sleep, compounding Richard's paranoia. But then Mr. Kruhulik again comes by to pick the rugs and sees The Girl. Sherman has no option but pretend to be at dinner and sends The Girl back to her apartment. The 2 apartments were connected via a staircase, which were boarded over to block the staircase. At night, The Girl removes the boards and comes back down to sleep at Sherman's apartment. Sherman imagines that a wronged Helen returns home to exact her revenge.

Now a nervous wreck, Richard has a crazed confrontation with Tom MacKenzie (Sonny Tufts), whom Helen had asked to drop by to pick up Ricky's paddle. Eventually coming to his senses, Richard, paddle in hand, tells The Girl she can stay in his apartment, then runs off to catch the next train to Maine to be with Helen.