Born Yesterday

source: Born Yesterday

I guess it's not bad enough to center a movie around the hijinks of a couple white trash, alcoholic, morons, you have to add the most annoying voice in recorded history to seal the deal. I would rather turn gay and marry Steve Urkel from Family Matters than be subjected to this again. How was this a comedy. I can't think of one thing that was ever even remotely close to being funny. I can't remember anything that even played for a laugh. I must admit, I did smile once. It was nice to see Harry slap her around a bit. I think that if they had existed at the time we very likely would have seen a consensus between the Razzies and the Oscars.

The dizzy blonde girlfriend of a shady business tycoon gets tutored by a handsome newspaperman in Washington, D.C.; she learns about U.S. Government and more...enough to know that the abusive blowhard she's with is giving her a rough deal. Dated comedy, based on the hit Broadway play, with an erratic tone that switches off and on between the three main characters: brassy (Judy Holliday), romantically sedate and sane (William Holden) and raucous (Broderick Crawford). Crawford in particular doesn't seem to know he's in a comedy, and director George Cuckor doesn't allow his ill-tempered behavior a respite; worse, the writers are so tough on Crawford that we end up caring more about him than was probably intended. Scene-stealing Holliday won the Best Actress Oscar, and she's half a delight; in the first two acts, her brittle witticisms and wide-eyed incredulousness are engaging, but once she smartens up there's nothing left for her to do but trail the men around. Holden doesn't do much except show up looking handsome; his pre-conceived character is just an outline, and Holden can't do much except be easy and charming. The jaunts to the usual D.C. sites have a faint whiff of superficiality (with Holliday's Billie getting fired up over seeing The Constitution), but at least the picture still has some comic drive. By the final act, the writing is too faithful to the play, wrapping things up in a stale, obvious fashion. Billie gets a sweet, funny send-off, but the film is a cut-and-paste job, with a smarter-than-thou sheen which leaves some dissatisfaction behind. **1/2 from ****

We're working through the films of our younger days; some are astonishingly better than we remember (Rebel Without A Cause, Summer Place), some are absolutely unwatchable (The Apartment). Sorry, this is Category II. Cukor is the problem: a visitor from a distant galaxy could instantly recognize that we're supposed to already know that Judy Holliday is hilarious, that there's going to be big boffo laffs, and that she can therefore play it very, very small and, OK, here's the huge pause in the action so you've got time for the obligatory laugh. Awful. That's before we get to the content of the cruel, demeaning script. Politically incorrect? Of course, but even without that it has no compunctions about embarrassing the principals for humorous purpose. Pity, because what Judy Holliday is doing here is incredibly quirky and individual, like a young Shirley Maclaine.

For the n-th time, I have attempted to watch this movie. I've never gotten past maybe 30 minutes. This time I tried to watch it with my wife who is more open than I am, and like rom-coms. Even she couldn't take it past the unfunny card scene which I told her was supposed to be the highlight of the film. It's not so much that Judy's voice is unbearable, but you can hardly understand a word she's saying. Most of the lines are delivered in an undertone or half spoken. Plus, she never looked good in a single outfit. For those of you who seem to think this play would go over well in modern times, please note that it was revived on Broadway at least 2 times and made into a movie....and all failed terribly. Maybe the idea of it is stupid. HOWEVER, the same director did a film years before called DINNER AT 8, where an overbearing businessman and his wife (mistress) have it out. Most people remember Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery in what is essentially the same situation. Only that time, it was a riot. "You big gasbag!".

Back in 1950 Born Yesterday was a staggeringly huge box-office success. This Rom-Com really wowed its audiences with its apparent clever wit that had them all literally rolling in the aisles with peals of uncontrollable laughter. But, today, 63 years later - I found this film's somewhat contrived and predictable story to be repeatedly teetering on the very edge of being just a one-note joke that got mighty stale after just the first half-hour. At the start Judy Holliday's Billie Dawn character (in all of its crudeness and its cluelessness) was kind of cute and amusing - But, it certainly didn't take long for the loud-mouthed brassiness of her character to grate on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. It certainly seemed to me that the more Billie got educated (which seemed to happen at about warp speed) the more annoying and downright tiresome she became. And I also found that she proved, in the end, to be way too smart to have actually been as unbelievably dumb as she was initially perceived to be. I personally thought that Holliday was badly miscast as the Billie character. Not only did she lack any conviction in her overall performance, but, she was painfully deficient of any sexual appeal, as well. I think that this was the sort of role meant for an actress with the dynamic screen-presence of Marilyn Monroe, which Holliday obviously lacked. Besides Holliday not being able to cut the mustard in this comedy, I also thought that Broderick Crawford was a repulsive bore as the big-mouthed bully-of-a-billionaire and William Holden as the true-blue, little news-reporter was far too wishy-washy for my liking. All-in-all - Born Yesterday was just a so-so comedy that really baffles me in regards to it huge popularity back in its heyday.

More often than not, I get annoyed at the sound of Oscar award winning (for this part) Judy Holiday's (né Judith Tuvim) voice but it served her character well in this moving drama in which she plays a dim witted and exploited partner of a uncouth and domineering man (Broderick Crawford). William Holden, as always, is very good in his role; this time he is the reporter hired to refine Holiday but falls in love with her. There are so many memorable scenes in this movie but I think the best ones are the card game between Judy and Broderick, the somewhat heavy handed references to Jefferson, and of course the comeuppance of Broderick. The supporting actors, especially Broderick's longsuffering lawyer are also more than competent in their complimentary roles. 8/10.

When you consider that Judy Holliday won the Oscar for her performance in BORN YESTERDAY, she beat out Bette Davis as Margo Channing in ALL ABOUT EVE and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD. Controversy over this award, given out 50 years ago, is still raging!

One of my favourite films of all time, this Broderick Crawford, Judy Holliday, William Holden vehicle was magnificently written by Garson Kanin and superbly directed by George Cukor. Cukor did something that is seldom done with any film: He decided to rehearse `Born Yesterday' as if it were a play (which it was on Broadway and of which Judy Holliday performed the role of Billie Dawn 1,200 times) and had a complete theater built on one of the studio's soundstages and filled it with an audience so he could perfectly time the laughs and the pauses so the movie-going public wouldn't miss a thing. This bit of directing genius is part of what is responsible for the remarkable film that is `Born Yesterday.' The other part of the equation is the casting of Broderick Crawford as the slimy, junk dealer turned multi-millionaire, Harry Brock. Rita Hayworth was originally slated to star as Billie Dawn but when she married Ally Khan and put her screen career on hold the producers ran through an entire list of potential candidates… It was only with great reluctance that they finally decided to use Judy Holliday in the role she created on Broadway – not believing she was a big enough `name' to pull in audiences. Lucky break for them: She went on to win the first Oscar ever awarded to an actress for a comedic role. Her every movement, glance and word is a study in brilliance of the not-so-dumb blonde, Billie Dawn. Unfortunately Judy Holliday's career was cut short when she died of breast cancer just a few weeks short of her 44th birthday – who knows what kind of work she could have accomplished had she only lived. `Born Yesterday' went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, but the only award went to Judy Holliday for Best Actress; she also won the Golden Globe in the same category that year. This is a finely crafted tale of greed, corruption and the ultimate price that must be paid by those that believe they can manipulate the law and the government by for and of the people. It is a brilliant movie and should not be missed.

Are you folks sure this is a good movie? I'm halfway through and it just gets worse and worse, moving slower and slower and slower to the point that I'm afraid it will never end. Comedy? Maybe people actually laughed in the movie theater 60 years ago, but it's mighty quiet here. Hasn't anyone in this movie heard of "subtlety"? Talk about over-acting. Judy Holliday and Broderick Crawford look like they came out of a prequel to Dumb and Dumber. And William Holden is wishy washy, never clearly defining his character or motivation for any of the things he is doing, aside from getting laid by a not especially pretty moll of a gangster, which is a pretty darn stupid thing to do for a supposedly in the know Washington reporter. (This is either a violation of basic journalistic ethics or a deposit on some concrete galoshes.) Neither Holden nor Holliday fit their parts. Put Marilyn Monroe and Kirk Douglas in them and this might sizzle. Monroe knew how to play the dual levels of a smart inner dame and an outer ditsy dame, as seen in Bus Stop. And Douglas wrote the book on cynical reporting in Ace in the Hole. As it is, there is no chemistry between them, zero, and none between Holliday and Crawford, either. Crawford "really loves" Holliday? Why? She is as charming as screeching chalk on a blackboard. So Cukor rehearsed the cast before a live audience to get the timing. That might have had some relevance when this was shown in a theater. But on home video half a century later all this cast produces is puzzled silence. I suppose there was something edgy about taking on political corruption in a more innocent time. Except it had been done, far better, two years before in State of the Union, and earlier by Frank Capra in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe. Whatever shock value there might once have been (were voters every really that naive?) is long gone in today's world of rampant scandals. OK, I'll try to finish it. And I'll try to like it. But I have the feeling it's not going to be easy. Update: OK, I finished it. Spoiler alert: It ends just like you think it is going to end, the plot unfolding with about the excitement of a AAA road map. There's a reason most people have never seen this "classic": It's boring. To be specific, the acting is boring, the plot is boring, the script is boring, the characters are boring and the directing is boring. I don't remember if the music is boring. Was there any music? But who am I to judge? Apparently, some people just love boring movies. After all, there are a lot of boring people in the world.