Born Yesterday
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Albert Mannheimer from a play by Garson Kanin
1949/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/my DVD collection
[box] Harry Brock: Shut up! You ain’t gonna be tellin’ nobody nothin’ pretty soon!
Billie Dawn: DOUBLE NEGATIVE! Right? [/box]
Think what you will about the line-up for the 1949 Best Actress Oscars. It is impossible for me to think anyone else deserved the award while actually watching Judy Holliday in this movie.
Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) is a self-made man. He refuses to say he deals in scrap metal, preferring to refer to himself as being in the junk business. He has travelled to Washington, DC to grease some legislation on scrap steel with strategically placed bribe. His traveling companion is his fiancee of seven years, prototypical dumb blond Billie Dawn (Holliday). Both Harry and Billie are hardly fit for polite society. Since Harry is clearly beyond reform, Harry’s lawyer suggests that he get someone to educate Billie on the social graces.
Unfortunately for Harry, he hits on the idea of hiring Paul Verrall, an investigative reporter who dropped by to interview him. Paul gives Billie an education far beyond anything Harry could imagine and wins her heart in the process.
Despite all the patriotic speeches that come out of Holden’s character, I really love this movie. Crawford and Holliday are hilarious together and separately. Not since Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery went at it in Dinner at Eight has there been such a duo. The almost silent gin rummy game between the two of them makes me laugh out loud every time. I don’t know who got the idea of casting Holden as an intellectual. He did his best. Holliday could be annoying as hell but I find her absolutely endearing. Recommended.
Holliday won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Director; Best Writing; Screenplay; and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.
Trailer
Clip – from the gin game
Not even Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard?
Actually, I don’t completely disagree. I’d have given the Oscar to Swanson, but I can’t say that Holliday didn’t earn it. I love her in this. It takes a very smart actress to play this role this dumb.
While I am actually watching Sunset Blvd., Swanson seems like the only choice as well. I think Holliday was very smart. I read that when she was called before HUAAC, she flummoxed the committee so entirely that she was the only witness never blacklisted or compelled to name names.
Judy Holiday was nobody’s dumb blonde. I believe she had a genius IQ. What a talent and what a great film! Holden and Holiday are perfect in their romantic arc. The comparison to DINNER AT EIGHT is apt!
Nice to get back into the classics of the year again. I have Harvey and All About Eve coming up. Can’t wait!
I’m realizing that some of my favorite films are from the late 1940s and early 1950s. They still play well today!
Very conflicted on this, an acting tour-de-force but the politics are a big enjoyment stumbling block!!!!
The value here is mostly for Holliday, whose role as Billie makes this far better than it has any right to be… the fulsome praise of the American way, which begins to dominate in the last third, might have worked when the film was made but today it is laughable. Her male co-actors are fine but Holliday is a standout, just ignore the jingoism. All I can say is, you MUST watch this to see a piece of real acting.
A lot of people think that Holliday robbed Gloria Swanson of her Oscar but I think she absolutely deserved it. Agree about the great American Way speechifying but still it’s good to remember a time when people could say this kind of stuff with a straight face.