Born Yesterday [dir. George Cukor]

Some of you that have seen Superman III will recall Lorilei (Pamela Stephenson), the stereotype bad guy's squeaky-voiced platinum blond dumb moll (although in a throwaway gag, when no one's around she is reading a tome by Kant). I would not have imagined you could make an entire feature about such a character, but long ago they actually did, as a play on Broadway and subsequently a Hollywood film directed by George Cukor; the bigger surprise is that it works.

Born Yesterday's dumb blond Billie Dawn (Judy Holliday) is a coarse-mannered Bronx territory former chorus girl picked up as a "companion" by bluff junkyard tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) who has blustered and bribed his way to success and now hopes to use the same strategy with Washington. In our cynical worldview, this would be easier done than said, but the film presents a more "Capra-esque" America where most politicians are apparently honest and high-minded enough to require a more elegant approach. Therefore our tycoon must make a good impression on the right people. Brock, cheerfully oblivious to his own lack of etiquette (or at least believing he doesn't need it), is embarrassed by his woman's social deficiencies among Washington's elite and his solution is to grab the first journalist that comes for an interview (William Holden) and hire him to "smarten up the dumb broad a little". Holden (pegged somewhere between Cary Grant and Glenn Ford on a scale of accessible charm) takes on the task for the money, but also because he believes "A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in".

Holden has his work cut out for him, because our chorus girl is as unwilling a student as it gets. In an early scene, she delivers an incisive rejoinder about why she is happy the way she is, since she gets what she wants by remaining dumb. But she goes along, mainly because she finds Holden cute (in a racy bit of flirtation, she asks him "Are you one of those talkers, or would you be interested in a little action?"). You can see this is a precursor to the more celebrated My Fair Lady (which Cukor also directed). But Born Yesterday is not so much about outward transformation: Billie does not turn into an elegant socialite or the gifted level IQ Holliday was in real life, but by being educated piecemeal - with an intimidating mixture of art museums, Beethoven concerts and (?!) political philosopher Thomas Paine - and trained to exercise her mind in serious directions, she becomes more aware of the possibilities within herself to be a better person and an informed contributor to society. This of course means that Brock got more than he bargained for his "dumb broad", and that has interesting consequences.

There's the witty script (based on the play by spouses Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon), and Cukor's adroit direction, but the major miracle of Born Yesterday is Judy Holliday's performance - as Billie, she is brassy, awkward, ignorant, frivolous and a disaster when she opens her mouth. Yet somehow she always finds an empathetic core in the part. In a lesser actor, those uncouth cadences would have quickly grown monotonous and grating. But she plays her vocal cords and facial emotions with the range and precision of a skilled orchestra. I need to see some of her other work,but already it would appear her meager filmography (Only 7 films in the 10 years after this astounding debut lead performance) is something of a tragedy. It helps that the supporting cast is strong. Holden is comfortable playing the wise and charming liberal egalitarian journalist, and Crawford is both funny and intimidating as the tycoon who believes that money gives him the right to run roughshod as he pleases. Also of note is Howard St John as the lawyer who has sacrificed self-esteem to be the tyrant's wheel-greaser.

With Cukor's penchant for long takes, the actors had to repeatedly rehearse their scenes in front of a live audience (culled from studio employees) before the cameras rolled, to feel the rhythm of the scenes and the laughter pulse; the resulting polish is up on the screen, with a smooth flow of the verbal and non-verbal repartee. While the romance angle is never really convincing (It was outright ludicrous in My Fair Lady and ruined that film for me), Born Yesterday is a charming journey of a woman coming to know about the world around her, and in the process learning to respect herself a little more.