It happened one night in the late summer of 1954.

Jules Schulback, a New York furrier and taker of home movies, heard that Marilyn Monroe would be on the Upper East Side of Manhattan filming scenes again for her new picture, "The Seven Year Itch." Two days earlier, Mr. Schulback had taken footage of her with his 16-millimeter Bolex movie camera around the corner from his townhouse apartment.

So he grabbed the camera — the one usually used for family picnics and parades and the stuff of everyday life — and headed over to the subway grate in front of Wright's Food shop, just down the street from the Trans-Lux movie theater on Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street.

Though it was around 1 a.m., a large crowd had already gathered, mostly newspaper photographers and curious men waiting to see Marilyn. The movie studio and the director, Billy Wilder, had counted on this, inviting the press and the public to drum up buzz for the new movie, which starred Ms. Monroe as "the Girl Upstairs," who entices a middle-aged executive, played by Tom Ewell, while his wife is away with the kids for the summer.