Born Yesterday (1950)

The greatest pleasure in watching Born Yesterday, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1950, is seeing the performance of Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. So good is Holliday in the role that she won the Oscar for Best Actress over two of the most acclaimed and influential performances by women in the history of movies: Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All about Eve and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Perhaps Holliday won because the votes were split between Davis and Swanson and she snuck in, but I suspect that voters saw just how remarkably nuanced and subtle Holliday's comedic performance is. It, too, has become a classic, and it's the main reason that Born Yesterday is still an enjoyable, entertaining film.

Broderick Crawford plays Harry Brock, a millionaire who's made his fortune buying and selling junk. He's quite proud, even boastful, of his humble beginnings, but he wants to make even more money. To do so, he needs to get some legislation passed by Congress. So he comes to Washington, with his lawyer and his assistant in tow, to see how many Congressmen he has to buy in order to get his way. In Harry's eyes, everyone has a price; you just have to find out what it is. He plans to take his money and spread it around until he achieves his goal (which is to make it easier for him to earn even more money).

Along for the trip is his girlfriend or fiancee, depending upon whose perspective you want to take, Billie Dawn. Billie isn't a smart woman, but she doesn't feel a particular need to become smart. A former show girl whom Harry rescued from the chorus, she gets whatever she wants: clothes, jewels, trips, furs, anything. All she has to do in return is sign some papers. She actually has to sign a lot of papers, but she never truly understands what she's signing. The truth is Harry and his lawyer have put quite a lot of Harry's holdings in Billie's name--she's one of his corporate officers, little more than a figurehead, really--so as to avoid having to declare the income from them. Billie, in fact, seems to own more of Harry's various interests than he does. She just doesn't know it.

After a disastrous first meeting with a Congressman and his wife where Billie makes some very off-the-wall comments and plays loud music on her radio instead of making conversation, Harry decides that Billie needs to be "smartened up" a bit. He enlists the help of a journalist with whom he earlier had an interview, Paul Verall (William Holden), and once he determines the price, $200 a week, everything is set for Billie's lessons to begin. The trouble is Billie doesn't want to learn; she wants to have a fling with Paul instead. Knowing what the Supreme Court is has little interest to her; getting to romance someone who looks like William Holden seems far more intriguing.

Nevertheless, Paul tries to stay dedicated to the task for which he's being paid. He brings her some books to read and some newspapers to go over. He tells her that she should not just read the funnies, as she is more accustomed to doing, but to take a look at the items in the front of the paper, "the not-so-funnies." He tells her to circle anything she doesn't understand in the newspaper, and when he returns the next day, the front page is covered with marks. He takes things slowly and explains concepts to Billie in easy-to-understand language, and she begins a process of becoming interested in learning. She even puts what appears to be an unabridged dictionary to frequent use, especially when she has to come up with insults for Harry. And it's a lovely touch having Billie put on glasses like the ones Paul is wearing; she must think it's a sign of intelligence.

The film features some lovely footage of Washington as Paul takes Billie on a tour of significant landmarks. They visit the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Archives at the Library of Congress, where Billie is impressed by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg Address. He even takes her to a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra in order to broaden her cultural horizons. After the performance, she tells him a bit about her upbringing, including some tender reminiscences about her father. It's clear by this point that Paul has fallen in love with Billie, and she says to him, "I go for you too."

Of course, a crisis occurs when Billie is asked to sign some more papers, ones involving a merger with French and Italian companies, and she asks for time to read them over first. Harry becomes furious and hits her. He then belittles her by calling her "dumb" and "cheap," and she leaves the hotel in order to figure out what she should do. She's really in love with Paul by now, but she fears they may no longer have a chance for a romantic relationship, given how much time they've devoted just to her self-improvement. When Paul proposes to her and then Harry tells her she's getting married to him, Billie has to decide what kind of future she wishes. The solution she comes up with is quite clever and shows just how far she's grown in the time she's been Paul's pupil.

Holliday gets some great lines in the film, thanks to the original play by Garson Kanin and the screenplay by Albert Mannheimer. She must have been one of the first people to say, "Pardon me for living," and one of her most famous lines is "Would you do me a favor, Harry?... Drop dead." But Holliday could make almost any humorous line sting. Just hearing her yell "Whaaat?" in that distinctive tone of hers is a delight. She's just as great at making her physical actions the source of comedy. I always laugh when I see her trying to walk the way she thinks someone classy might walk. I also can't help but laugh when I watch Billie and Harry playing a game of gin rummy, perhaps the most well known scene in the film. She has her little rituals like shuffling the cards around and singing music that sounds like it should accompany a striptease, and I love how she deals the cards when she's made at Harry. It's quite a masterful performance overall. I don't know that I would have chosen it over the performances by Davis and Swanson, but it's the reason why Born Yesterday is still an engaging film.

Oscar Win: Actress (Holliday)

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Costume Design (Black and White)