The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)

The Solid Gold Cadillac
Directed by Richard Quine
Written by Abe Burrows from the play by George S. Kaufman and Howard Teichmann
1956/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Laura Partridge: Do you like Shakespeare?

Edward L. McKeever: Well, I’ve read a lot of it.

Laura Partridge: Well, take my advice and don’t play it! It’s so tiring! They don’t let you sit down unless you’re a king![/box]

Judy Holliday is playing a smart “dumb blonde” again with her Born Yesterday co-star from Broadway.  Laughs are to be had.

Unemployed actress Laura Partridge (Holliday) has time to kill so she attends the annual meeting of International Project Corporation, in which she own ten shares of stock.  At this particular meeting, the board is saying goodbye to the founder and CEO of the company Ed McKeever (Paul Douglas), who has sold his stock prior to departing for Washington on a government assignment.  Thereafter, she asks lots of embarrassing questions, mostly about the high salaries being paid to the board members.  The voice-over narrator (George Burns) has already made clear that the board is a gang of thieves.

Laura Partridge keeps attending meetings and the board gets so desperate that it hires her for a make-work position in charge of stockholder relations.  But Laura takes her job seriously and spends her time actually reaching out to small shareholders.  Later, she is sent to Washington to persuade McKeever to give the company insider deals on projects. The whole thing is further spiced up with a romance and a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington type ending.  With John Williams, Fred Clark, and Ray Collins among the crooks.

This wasn’t perfect but I laughed out loud several times so I don’t have anything to complain about.

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