For ten years, I've been believing that no performance could have been more worthy of praise and admiration than either Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Blvd." or Bette Davis in "All About Eve". I assumed Judy Holliday won by default for what was certainly a good but not legendary performance. Sorry to open with a digression, but the history of George Cukor's "Born Yesterday" and the Oscars are inextricably linked, you can't just talk about Judy Holliday's performance without mentioning that she just beat two legends and two Oscar favorites.
It was reported that Gloria Swanson told her at her win's announcement "couldn't you wait one more year?". That's how good she was... but saying she was good wouldn't give you half the idea of how truly marvelous and luminous she is in every single moment and every subtle nuance of her performance. As the initially dumb street-smart blonde who grows a brain and a virtue, Holliday shines with the simple power of a wide-eyed expression, a silence, or facial expressions that reminded me of Madeline Kahn only with a more blissful energy.
As Billie Dawn, Holliday doesn't even portray your usual pixie dream girl who sees everything in rose-tainted colors, she's actually rather blasé and wise, wise not despite her naivety but in the way she feels comfortable with it as long as it allows her to live 'good' and bear her bear-framed boyfriend Harry Brock, a loud-mouthed (understatement) and uncouth junkyard millionaire who acts like a bully with his friends and enemies with equal furor. Broderick Crawford is unforgettable as the brutish and rude man, though sometimes too mean for a comedy. But Billie doesn't undergo his outbursts of anger with the passivity of a poor lamb but as a woman struggling but succeeding to find the good even in the worse situation.
That she could be so forgiving toward a man who only treats like some 'dumb broad' and punctuate every line with a mean and loud "Shut up!", can explain how easily she fell in love with William Holden, playing journalist Paul Verrall. Even a bespectacled Holden wouldn't fool anyone, at the prime of his handsomeness, his glasses are probably meant not to confuse him with his "Sunset Blvd." role. The literate man is hired by Harry to make Billie a presentable lady and not a living embarrassment in front of his upper-class acquaintances. In fact, Harry is bribing congressmen to expand his junkyard business and uses Billie as a front-man for fraudulent schemes so she must be smart enough to read the papers and stupid enough to sign them.
But first, neither Paul or Billie know about Harry's scam, they only grow a genuine fondness toward each other, Paul becomes in the eyes of Billie a gateway to a world she never knew: books, literature, history politics... the film's realism tangles a little in the way she quickly improves and I'm not sure I liked the way Paul was always dodging every question about hims Billie had every reason to want to know about him but he never told, and we never knew his motives. Even Harry was outspoken about his past and how he became such a slick prick. Maybe Paul was too much of a Prince Charming for the film's own good but I try to look at him as the instrument for Billie's irresistible metamorphosis, a reverse Mephistopheles.
And irresistible is the word, from the way she kept looking at the dictionary, how she just froze after a fancy word or smiled when she got something, it's like you could read in her mind through her facial expressions. And I wish I could just find the perfect way to describe her voice but then I would have to pull a "Billie Dawn" and do what I do for many reviews, check in 'Reverso' and then publish a review, pretending I knew these words all along. But what goes for Billie goes for everyone, literacy is like gymnastics, and Paul is a tutor that can be assimilated to a real coach, psychological support included in the service. Gaining "intelligence" which means the ability to understand is a small process, and one can read Balzac after starting with "The Cat in the Hat".
The film just insists that it's not much about the 'well-filled' head (quoting Montaigne) than a 'well-made' one and as Billie grows more interest in the history of the USA and politics (in the perfect possible setting: Washington D.C), she becomes more sensitive about her husbands' intents and the way they reflect what goes wrong in the system and to a lesser (or higher) extent the very injustices she's enduring. And I guess this is where the film loses a little of its emotional juice: as Billie gets more virtuous, the story gets less entertaining and not for the sake of drama but a rather preachy lecture about the merits of democracy that belonged more to a Capra movie and even "Mr. Smith" had an escapist value that the film severely lacked, and I'm afraid George Cukor went for a stage-like angle that didn't allow the story to take us outside the area of predictability it had set its course to.
Ironic that Holliday's performance won over a woman who was behaving all theatrically and a disillusioned stage actress, but there is a reason why "Sunset Blvd." and "All About Eve" outshined "Born Yesterday", the film is good and inspirational but too static and preachy near the end, a criticism I also hold for a classic of the same year: "Harvey". This is why it didn't get many reviews on IMDb and its main modern appeal is curiosity over the performance that beat two legends... but I say that's good enough a reason to watch the movie.
"Born Yesterday" is the life-defining movie of Judy Holliday, an actress who died too soon, a masterstroke of comedic performance, a role she was simply... "born" to play.
It was reported that Gloria Swanson told her at her win's announcement "couldn't you wait one more year?". That's how good she was... but saying she was good wouldn't give you half the idea of how truly marvelous and luminous she is in every single moment and every subtle nuance of her performance. As the initially dumb street-smart blonde who grows a brain and a virtue, Holliday shines with the simple power of a wide-eyed expression, a silence, or facial expressions that reminded me of Madeline Kahn only with a more blissful energy.
As Billie Dawn, Holliday doesn't even portray your usual pixie dream girl who sees everything in rose-tainted colors, she's actually rather blasé and wise, wise not despite her naivety but in the way she feels comfortable with it as long as it allows her to live 'good' and bear her bear-framed boyfriend Harry Brock, a loud-mouthed (understatement) and uncouth junkyard millionaire who acts like a bully with his friends and enemies with equal furor. Broderick Crawford is unforgettable as the brutish and rude man, though sometimes too mean for a comedy. But Billie doesn't undergo his outbursts of anger with the passivity of a poor lamb but as a woman struggling but succeeding to find the good even in the worse situation.
That she could be so forgiving toward a man who only treats like some 'dumb broad' and punctuate every line with a mean and loud "Shut up!", can explain how easily she fell in love with William Holden, playing journalist Paul Verrall. Even a bespectacled Holden wouldn't fool anyone, at the prime of his handsomeness, his glasses are probably meant not to confuse him with his "Sunset Blvd." role. The literate man is hired by Harry to make Billie a presentable lady and not a living embarrassment in front of his upper-class acquaintances. In fact, Harry is bribing congressmen to expand his junkyard business and uses Billie as a front-man for fraudulent schemes so she must be smart enough to read the papers and stupid enough to sign them.
But first, neither Paul or Billie know about Harry's scam, they only grow a genuine fondness toward each other, Paul becomes in the eyes of Billie a gateway to a world she never knew: books, literature, history politics... the film's realism tangles a little in the way she quickly improves and I'm not sure I liked the way Paul was always dodging every question about hims Billie had every reason to want to know about him but he never told, and we never knew his motives. Even Harry was outspoken about his past and how he became such a slick prick. Maybe Paul was too much of a Prince Charming for the film's own good but I try to look at him as the instrument for Billie's irresistible metamorphosis, a reverse Mephistopheles.
And irresistible is the word, from the way she kept looking at the dictionary, how she just froze after a fancy word or smiled when she got something, it's like you could read in her mind through her facial expressions. And I wish I could just find the perfect way to describe her voice but then I would have to pull a "Billie Dawn" and do what I do for many reviews, check in 'Reverso' and then publish a review, pretending I knew these words all along. But what goes for Billie goes for everyone, literacy is like gymnastics, and Paul is a tutor that can be assimilated to a real coach, psychological support included in the service. Gaining "intelligence" which means the ability to understand is a small process, and one can read Balzac after starting with "The Cat in the Hat".
The film just insists that it's not much about the 'well-filled' head (quoting Montaigne) than a 'well-made' one and as Billie grows more interest in the history of the USA and politics (in the perfect possible setting: Washington D.C), she becomes more sensitive about her husbands' intents and the way they reflect what goes wrong in the system and to a lesser (or higher) extent the very injustices she's enduring. And I guess this is where the film loses a little of its emotional juice: as Billie gets more virtuous, the story gets less entertaining and not for the sake of drama but a rather preachy lecture about the merits of democracy that belonged more to a Capra movie and even "Mr. Smith" had an escapist value that the film severely lacked, and I'm afraid George Cukor went for a stage-like angle that didn't allow the story to take us outside the area of predictability it had set its course to.
Ironic that Holliday's performance won over a woman who was behaving all theatrically and a disillusioned stage actress, but there is a reason why "Sunset Blvd." and "All About Eve" outshined "Born Yesterday", the film is good and inspirational but too static and preachy near the end, a criticism I also hold for a classic of the same year: "Harvey". This is why it didn't get many reviews on IMDb and its main modern appeal is curiosity over the performance that beat two legends... but I say that's good enough a reason to watch the movie.
"Born Yesterday" is the life-defining movie of Judy Holliday, an actress who died too soon, a masterstroke of comedic performance, a role she was simply... "born" to play.