Born Yesterday

Directed by George Cukor, Born Yesterday follows loud-mouthed tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) as he hires a smooth-talking journalist (William Holden’s Paul Verrall) to help his fiancée, Judy Holliday’s Billie Dawn, become a classier, smarter individual. There’s ultimately never a point at which it isn’t completely apparent that Born Yesterday‘s been adapted from a stage play, as the movie, generally speaking, transpires on a single location that paves the way for a hit-and-miss midsection rife with meandering, uninvolving sequences (eg Harry and Billie play a fairly endless game of gin rummy). It’s clear, then, that Born Yesterday benefits substantially from its ongoing proliferation of appealing elements, with the uniformly compelling, captivating performances going a long way towards ultimately smoothing over the narrative’s various bumps and lulls. (Both Crawford and Holden are very good here, undoubtedly, yet it remains perpetually obvious that this is Holliday’s show through and through.) The movie eventually does progress from watchable to enthralling as it enters its increasingly compelling third act, to be sure, as Billie’s inevitable transformation ensures that Born Yesterday closes with a series of unexpectedly engaging interludes (including a spellbinding argument between Holliday and Crawford’s respective figures) – which, when coupled with a satisfying conclusion, finally cements the picture’s place as an uneven yet thoroughly rewarding endeavor.

*** out of ****