Accent

Phil Villarreal's Review: Born Yesterday

That Judy Holliday seized the best-actress Oscar in the insanely competitive film year of 1950 speaks volumes for her acting, which lifted the black comedy "Born Yesterday" to legendary status. Holliday defeated not only Gloria Swanson's turn as an aging, delusional former movie star in "Sunset Blvd." - one of Hollywood's iconic performances - but won out over two powerhouse showings in the landmark theater-set drama "All About Eve," by Anne Baxter and Bette Davis. Film fanatics like to second-guess the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' often questionable choices, but this is one of the cases in which they got it right. Holliday is the absolute lifeblood of the film as the unrefined chorus-girl-turned-trophy-girlfriend Billie Dawn. Speaking in a ditsy, shrill lilt that hints at concealed wisdom, Holliday slyly turns the dumb-blonde stereotype inside out. Billie may be put upon, uneducated and inarticulate, but she's in control of every situation in which she finds herself, and always gets what she wants - proving you don't have to act smart to be smart. Billie sees that often the wisest play is to present herself as dumb, working under the cover of underestimation to best manipulate the world to her advantage. So perfect is Holliday in the role, it's astounding that she was only the third choice to play Billie, after Jean Parker and Rita Hayworth. Columbia head Harry Cohn was against Holliday playing Billie, but legend has it that director George Cukor, Katharine Hepburn and "Born Yesterday" playwright Garson Kanin conspired in "Adam's Rib" (released in 1949) to give Holliday a needed boost. Hepburn reportedly held back a bit in her scenes with Holliday so the younger actress could upstage her with charming ditsiness. In a twist on "Pygmalion," rough-talking, dirty millionaire tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) is embarrassed by the perceived mental ineptitude of his girlfriend. Harry, after giving a self-aggrandizing interview, hires the reporter, Paul Verrall (William Holden), to spend time with Billie, educate and refine her. Even in 1950 it was an obvious setup for a melodramatic love triangle, with the audience coarsely manipulated to root for Billie to choose the shy, stouthearted Paul over the the abusive Harry. It's up to the actors to generate enough magnetism to truly sell the ideal romantic pairing, and Holden and Holliday pull off the task with old-fashioned Hollywood magic, slyly allowing their intense attraction to simmer without bubbling over. The characters work in shells of platonicism, and when they first kiss, it's a genuine surprise. Not so shocking are the later scenes, in which the two new lovers form a detective partnership to expose Harry. "Born Yesterday" doesn't endure because of its romance, but its slick, subversive comedy. In 2000, the American Film Institute named "Born Yesterday" No. 24 on its 100 funniest movies list, and the film was esteemed enough go through the remake mill, in a 1993 failure with Melanie Griffith, John Goodman and Don Johnson. The older version of the film works so much better than its remake because of its harder edges and spot-on casting. And as moving as the teacher-student cum lover-lover moments are between Paul and Billie, most of the movie's laughs come from the scenes with Billie and the domineering Harry. The back-and-forth between Billie and Harry ranges in mostly good-natured bickering straight out of the "The Honeymooners," with a disagreement over who's "more couth." When they play cards, Billie always wins, even though Harry cheats to sate his own ego. Every now and then, a darker edge emerges, with Harry slipping in a nasty comment or three to let Billie know he's in control, and he sees her only as a piece of property, just like the senator he has on his payroll. Billie backs down until late in the film, when she stands her ground for the first time and Harry raises his fist. When she starts to display some book knowledge as a result of hanging around with Paul, Harry takes it as an immediate affront and begins quizzing her on various trivia to prove his intellectual superiority. "What's a peninsula?" he shouts. "You think you're so smart, huh? What's a peninsula?" Such intense moments build toward the epiphany, in which all the film's forces converge for a shining moment of take-no-guff victory, and Billie finally sheds her pretense of dumbness for a sharp remark that leaves the blathering Harry speechless. "Would you do me a favor, Harry?" Billie says with calm assuredness. "Drop dead."