Reel Classics: Born Yesterday

Today’s edi­tion of Reel Classics brings us a delight­ful com­e­dy that was huge­ly pop­u­lar in its day but may not be as well-known today.  I hope to change that. 

Born Yesterday was released in late 1950 and starred Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn, Broderick Crawford as her wheel­ing and deal­ing fiancé Harry Brock, and William Holden as news­pa­per­man Paul Verrall.

Harry Brock comes to Washington D.C. to see if he can find a cor­rupt­ible con­gress­man to assist him in his finan­cial endeav­ors.  Harry is a wealthy but bul­ly­ing busi­ness­man and far from polite.  Billie Dawn is his long-time fiancée who is an ex-show­girl.  She comes across as crass and not very bright, and Harry wants to “pol­ish” her up to impress his Washington D.C. con­tacts.  He hires a reporter he meets, Paul Verrall, to “tutor” Billie and to help soft­en her gruff ways and lan­guage.  Paul also pro­vides some lessons in U.S. his­to­ry, lit­er­a­ture, and the law to give her a bet­ter under­stand­ing of her surroundings. 

These efforts pay off in ways not antic­i­pat­ed by Harry as Billie comes to see him as the con­niv­ing crook he tru­ly is.  She begins to think for her­self and chal­lenge Harry — much to his dis­may.  We watch her blos­som and learn she is much smarter than what oth­ers have per­ceived.  She also finds her­self falling in love with the hand­some Paul Verrall. 

Born Yesterday was adapt­ed from a very pop­u­lar Broadway play writ­ten by Garson Kanin.  Kanin also assist­ed in revis­ing the screen­play for the film (though he was not cred­it­ed).  The play opened in February 1946 and ran for 1,642 per­for­mances.  The orig­i­nal cast in the play includ­ed Judy Holliday as Billie, Paul Douglas as Harry, and Gary Merrill as Paul. 

Interestingly, Judy Holliday came to the role by a quirk of fate.  The role of Billie was orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for Jean Arthur.  However, just a cou­ple of nights before the play was to open, she decid­ed to drop out of the pro­duc­tion.  Judy Holliday was brought in to assume the role and worked hard for the next cou­ple of days to pre­pare for the open­ing.  Obviously, her efforts paid off. 

Even with her pop­u­lar­i­ty in the role on Broadway, she was not the first choice of the stu­dio to play the lead in the film adap­ta­tion.  The head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, had sev­er­al oth­er actress­es in mind for the role includ­ing Rita Hayworth, Celeste Holm, Paulette Goddard, and Ida Lupino.  However, Katherine Hepburn worked to cre­ate atten­tion for Judy Holliday.  They had appeared togeth­er in the film Adam’s Rib (1949) along with Spencer Tracy.  Hepburn told var­i­ous gos­sip colum­nists that Judy Holliday’s per­for­mance in Adam’s Rib took the spot­light from Hepburn and Tracy.  These columns did their work, and Harry Cohn became inter­est­ed in Judy Holliday and offered her the role. 

Harry Cohn was not much liked by many of those who worked for him.  Both Broderick Crawford and William Holden shared a dis­like of Cohn.  They both had a fond­ness for alco­hol and as a joke on Cohn would order large Scotches at lunchtime to give him con­cern about them get­ting drunk on the set.  They also upset him by run­ning up large room ser­vice bills while on loca­tion in Washington D.C. 

The play­wright Garson Kanin also shared a dis­like for Cohn.  In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, he wrote that he received  $1 mil­lion for the film rights to his play because Cohn had heard that Kanin  had been quot­ed as say­ing he “would­n’t sell the rights to Harry Cohn for any amount-not even a mil­lion dol­lars.” Reportedly Kanin also claimed that the char­ac­ter of the obnox­ious Harry Brock was pat­terned after Harry Cohn, but Cohn nev­er saw that.

Born Yesterday was nom­i­nat­ed for five Academy Awards includ­ing Best Picture, Best Director (George Cukor), and Best Actress (Judy Holliday).  Many were shocked when Judy Holliday received the award as her com­pe­ti­tion that year includ­ed Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard) and Bette Davis (All About Eve).

Judy Holliday played the part of the dit­sy blond, but in real­i­ty was extreme­ly intel­li­gent.  She had an IQ of 172.  She was once quot­ed as say­ing “You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over and keep the audi­ence’s atten­tion with­out extra­or­di­nary phys­i­cal equipment.” 

Other well-respect­ed films in which she starred include It Should Happen to You (with Peter Lawford and Jack Lemmon), The Solid Gold Cadillac (with Paul Douglas), and Bells are Ringing (with Dean Martin).  Unfortunately, Judy Holliday’s career was cut short as she died in 1965 from breast can­cer at the age of 43. 

Positive reviews came out after the release of the film.  The New York Times review­er wrote, “Just in time to make itself evi­dent as one of the best pic­tures of this fad­ing year is Columbia’s tren­chant screen ver­sion of the stage play Born Yesterday ... On the strength of this one appear­ance, there is no doubt that Miss Holliday will leap into pop­u­lar­i­ty as a lead­ing American movie star.” 

The review in The Washington Post stat­ed the film was “an even more beguil­ing com­e­dy than it was on the stage, and Judy Holliday’s even funnier.”

A review in Harrison’s Reports described it as “an excel­lent com­e­dy ...  One has to see and hear Miss Holliday to ful­ly appre­ci­ate the superb deliv­ery of her lines and the fine shad­ings of her art­ful mannerisms.” 

But lest we for­get, this was the 1950’s and the anti-com­mu­nist folks were active in Hollywood.  Writer Garson Kanin and Judy Holliday were linked to polit­i­cal groups that were deemed by some as sub­ver­sive.  In 1951 mem­bers of the Anti-Communist Committee of the Catholic War Veterans pick­et­ed the­aters screen­ing the film because of the alle­ga­tions against Kanin and Holliday. 

In fact, Judy Holliday was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee to tes­ti­fy.  Advisors sug­gest­ed that she take on the char­ac­ter of Billie Dawn and report­ed­ly played the role of the dit­sy blonde before the com­mit­tee.  She did not name any names.  The com­mit­tee did not find her to be a threat and she was not blacklisted.

Another inter­est­ing fact about Judy Holliday is that when she learned she had can­cer she gave up films and focused on a rela­tion­ship with jazz musi­cian Gerry Mulligan.  She began writ­ing lyrics to some of the music he com­posed.  The songs can be found on an album enti­tled Holliday with Mulligan. It was­n’t released until 1980, many years after her death. She had orig­i­nal­ly begun her career as a night­club singer. 

Born Yesterday is list­ed at #24 on the American Film Institute’s “100 Funniest American Movies Of All Time.” In 2012 it was select­ed by the Library of Congress for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry. 

In lat­er years Garson Kanin want­ed to do a remake of the film.  Reportedly through­out the 1970s and 1980s, he worked on the project with such stars in mind as Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, and Whoopi Goldberg.  He even had thoughts of a musi­cal ver­sion of the film with Bernadette Peters or Dolly Parton. 

A remake was even­tu­al­ly made (with­out Kanin) in 1993 with Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson, and John Goodman.  This ver­sion also had the lead­ing actress nom­i­nat­ed for an award—but not the Oscar.  Melanie Griffith was nom­i­nat­ed for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress.  Fortunately for her, she did not win. (Hint: watch the original.) 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates Born Yesterday at 7.5 out of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ic’s score of 97% and an audi­ence score of 85%.  In search­ing for free stream­ing sites I was unable to locate any.  Unfortunately, the Clark County Public Library does not have a copy on the shelves.  (Perhaps if you ask they will obtain a copy). 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.

This is a hilar­i­ous com­e­dy worth seek­ing out.  Judy Holliday’s career was end­ed far too soon by can­cer, and for many, she has fad­ed or is unknown.  It is my hope that this edi­tion of Reel Classics will raise inter­est in seek­ing out her films.  Until next time, I leave you with the trail­er for Born Yesterday.