It's an image everyone has seen: Marilyn Monroe flirtatiously posing over a subway grate, her white dress fluttering in the air. Filmed on a late summer night in Manhattan, this moment from The Seven Year Itch is the most enduring depiction of the blonde icon. Now, a fascinating New York Times report reveals the story behind some never-before-seen footage of the star that was also shot on that famous night.

Though the scene ultimately shown in Billy Wilder's comedy was actually filmed in Hollywood, the popular images of that Monroe-on-the-subway-grate moment are mainly stills from that New York night. Wilder knew the scene would drum up interest, and he used its filming as a chance for free publicity. After word of the shoot spread, dozens of people showed up to the set—including Jules Schulback, a local furrier who had moved to the city from Germany. He got there around one A.M., armed with a 16-millimeter Bolex movie camera, and managed to get “incredibly close,” the Times notes, “filming right behind Mr. Wilder‘s shoulder.”

The footage he captured became a bit of Schulback family lore. It was rediscovered in 2004 by his granddaughter Bonnie Siegler and her husband, experimental filmmaker Jeff Scher, who recovered and repaired the old film. Finally seeing the images was “like seeing a myth materialize,” he tells the Times.

There's footage of Monroe chatting with co-star Tom Ewell, pushing her dress down every time it flares up. “It flutters up some more and she laughs, her head thrown back,” according to the Times‘s description of Schulback's footage. “It blows up again, but she doesn’t push it down this time, and it flies up over her head, clearly revealing two pairs of underwear that, because of the bright lights, do not protect Ms. Monroe’s modesty quite as much as she might have liked.”

Schulback's backstory is what makes this Monroe footage even more fascinating. The furrier, who passed in 2006, lived with his family in Germany, but grew uneasy as Hitler rose to power. He felt the politician was “much more dangerous than anyone thought,” and urged his family to move in 1938. He flew to America and secured a sponsor, then went back to get his wife, Edith, and daughter Helen. Upon re-entering Germany, he was stopped by Nazi border guards, so he lied and said he was a distributor for Clark Gable‘s new movie, because he knew the Germans were fond of Gable's 1934 film It Happened One Night. The Germans bought it. Schulback was able to flee with his family on November 8—the day before Kristallnacht.

They eventually settled in Manhattan's Upper East Side, where Schulback indulged his home-movie-making pastime—a habit that eventually led him to film the most famous actress on earth, striking her most famous pose.

Correction: Schulman died in 2006, not 2005. He also said he was a distributor for a Clark Gable film, not specifically the film It Happened One Night.