NFR Project: 'Born Yesterday' (1950)

 

NFR Project: “Born Yesterday”

Dir: George Cukor

Scr: Albert Mannheimer, Garson Kanin

Pho: Joseph Walker

Ed: Charles Nelson

Premiere: Dec. 25, 1950

102 min.

Born Yesterday is a showcase for the talents of the effervescent Judy Holliday (1921-1945).

Comedian and actress, she began life as Judith Tuvim in Queens. In 1938, she joined a performing troupe called the Revuers, which providentially included that great lyric-writing team Betty Comden and Adolf Green. (Leonard Bernstein used to play the piano for their act, long before he became a name.) They became successful on New York’s nightclub scene, and soon Holliday was working on stage and in film.

Born Yesterday was written by Garson Kanin (with the help of his wife, Ruth Gordon) for Jean Arthur. When Arthur turned the opportunity down, Holliday was picked in 1946 to play the part of Billie Dawn. She got rave reviews, and was a natural to tackle the role onscreen in 1950. She did such an amazing job that she won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Actress.

She plays Billie Dawn, a supposedly ditzy chorus girl turned kept woman. She is the companion of Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford), a fabulously rich, abrasive junk dealer who is in Washington, D.C. to make some crooked deals and influence legislation in his favor. She is, seemingly, a classic dumb blonde – squeaky-voiced, obsessed with her looks, unfamiliar with anything complex or ambiguous. Brock wants her to mingle with polite society, so he commands that she get an education.

Enter Paul Verrall (William Holden), a journalist seeking an interview with Brock. Brock takes a shine to him and convinces him to tutor Billie, and he does – taking her on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. capitol, and assigning her a load of books to read. Unexpectedly, Billie proves to be much sharper than anyone took her for. Soon she is questioning Brock’s habit of hiding assets under her name, which entails her signing many documents she doesn’t understand. She balks at this, and declares her independence and her contempt for him. Meanwhile, she and Paul fall for each other.

Holliday plays a shallow person who develops depth; she combines sheer daffiness with a sharp emotional intelligence that makes her appealing and fascinating to watch. Billie transforms herself from a dumb bunny into a smart cookie, and the film can be read as a proto-feminist fable. However, Billie marries Paul at the film’s conclusion, and one wonders how liberated she will really become.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: D.O.A.