Die ist nicht von Gestern

Any play that runs 1642 performances on Broadway for three years you know will wind up in Hollywood. But usually the Broadway cast never makes it intact.

It didn't here, but we were lucky to get Judy Holliday to repeat her acclaimed Broadway role her as Billie Dawn, gal pal of junk tycoon Broderick Crawford. Judy only got the role because Rita Hayworth decided to marry Aly Khan and after testing several others who weren't quite right Harry Cohn decided to go with the original. She rewarded Cohn's late faith with a Best Actress Oscar for 1950.

Speaking of Oscars, Cohn had an interesting problem on his hands which he solved with Born Yesterday. Broderick Crawford had brought home an Oscar the year before for All the King's Men. But Crawford was hardly traditional leading man material. But there sure were enough similarities with the dictatorial minded Willie Stark with the tyrannical Harry Brock so that Cohn could cast Crawford and keep the momentum going for his career. Crawford's part was played by Paul Douglas on stage who would get to Hollywood right around this time as well.

Still neither Holliday or Crawford were box office and Columbia needed one name that had some guaranteed pull with movie audiences. That's where Bill Holden came in. The part was built up from the Broadway version, all that tourist business at the Capitol and other Washington sites were not on Broadway. The role of the intellectual newspaper reporter was played by Gary Merrill and Merrill was certainly better suited for the part than Holden. Personally I think that Cohn should have gone with his other reliable leading man, Glenn Ford in this part. Still even with the built up role Holden was a definite number three in this film.

The plot is very simple, the magic of Born Yesterday is watching Holliday's character grow in awareness of what's around her. She's the play thing of junk tycoon Harry Brock, a self made millionaire who's street smart, rich, and nothing else. He's aware of it though and aware that Holliday lacks the social graces as well.

Since Crawford can't or won't learn them, at least he wants a polished hostess to make up for it. He hires newspaper reporter Holden to teach Holliday. But he teaches her about democracy and the corrupting influence of special interests of which Crawford is one and she's now aware of.

Crawford also put a lot of his holdings in her name for tax purposes. That's a created situation, Crawford regrets starting.

Holliday became so identified with the Billie Dawn role that when she started having blacklisting problems due to her left wing politics, she went into character as Billie Dawn before Congress. The chumps in Congress actually bought it all and she skated. Actually in real life Holliday was a well read intelligent woman, the last thing from Billie Dawn you could imagine.

Judy Holliday spent the remainder of her career between Broadway and Hollywood so her film output remains small and she died way too young. Still as another uneducated character in a film said, what there is, is cherce.

Born Yesterday is as cherce as it gets.

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.

A brilliant Judy Holliday performance is the main attraction in this witty, brisk adaptation of Garson Kanin's Broadway success. As a gangster's moll who gradually awakens to her civic responsibility, Holliday expands her dumb-broad persona from her previous film with Cukor, Adam's Rib, into a character who's sweet, memorable and surprisingly tough.

Born Yesterday is a suitable companion piece to Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, a much more self-consciously "important" film that imparts similar messages about political corruption and the responsibility of individuals to require ethical governance. The message is arguably more powerfully imparted here - filtered through the perspective of the selfish, spoiled and barely-literate Ms. Dawn - than in the film focused on Jimmy Stewart's eloquent (and intimidatingly ethical) Mr. Smith, an "everyman" who is vastly morally superior to most audience members.

William Holden is relaxed and charming as the Henry Higgins-ish newspaper man tasked with opening Billie's eyes and Broderick Crawford is suitably broad and menacingly raspy as her corrupt, vulgar boyfriend. However, the movie is all Holliday's from the opening scenes, which play on the audience's lack of familiarity with the actress by presenting her as a refined, statuesque beauty in an extended sequence until, at last, she squawks out her first lines in nearly impenetrable, helium-voiced Brooklynese to hilarious effect.

A richly deserved Best Actress Oscar for the newcomer Holliday, despite formidable competition from grande dames Bette Davis (All About Eve) and Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard).

There were moments, in Born Yesterday, when Judy Holliday reminded me of Lucille Ball doing her famous hair-brained TV character--but doing a better job of that kind of funny, I thought. In black-and-white, there are some physical resemblances between the two, but Holliday's comedy in this picture is nuanced, rather than milked. It's a surprise, but a nice one, to read that she beat out two famous performers in two dramatic films--Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve--to take Best Actress Oscar for this comic role.

Holliday and Broderick Crawford's "funny" voices--perpetually raised and in a key of harsh could have been awful, but they remain hilarious from front to finish. I admired how the script and the director avoided some obvious, easy to imagine pitfalls with this story arc. Holliday's character may have an intellectual and moral awakening, but she's still swapping loud brash repartee with her Harry all the way through.

At points, this picture made me think of some of my favourite French films in which minor or unglamorous characters, who would occupy cinematic bit parts in most movies are pushed into the spotlight for a closer look. Born Yesterday engaged in that kind of affectionate recasting and gave these actors room to strut their classic best.

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.