Billy Dawn (Judy Holliday) is the kept woman of a thuggish businessman (Broderick Crawford).
When he takes her to Washington DC, Billy becomes acquainted with a local reporter (William Holden) who is investigating her beau’s dirty dealings.
As Billy learns more about the nation’s capital, and the country’s political system, she begins to question her boyfriend’s actions in corrupting it.
I was considering reviewing this movie earlier in the year, but lack of interest derailed it.
Considering the state of US politics now, Born Yesterday’s hopeful idealism makes it feel like a museum piece.
At the time, the film was something of a riposte to the paranoia of the early Cold War (Holliday would herself come under suspicion).
Still, while that context makes it interesting, it does not make the film more engaging.
Thank the maker for Judy Holliday.
She was the best thing in it the first time I watched it, and on every subsequent, half-hearted viewing.
Holliday is a breath of fresh air as Billy Dawn. The whole point of the character and the film is that she is not the 2D arm candy everyone assumes she is, but she makes this revelation - and the character’s subsequent transformation into a protector of the realm - compelling and real.
Introduced as the silent companion to Crawford’s bellicose, vulgar tycoon, he is the first person to directly retort her boyfriend - mimicking his bellow with a guttural, sarcastic “What?” (a recurring bit that gets funnier the more she does it).
Holliday never telegraphs, showing the characters’ savvy with the smallest turns of phrase. The way she throws away lines about not knowing anything feels knowing without any winking at the audience.
The character feels wilfully obtuse, rather than oblivious - for a great example, check out the way she sniffs out the snobbery of the congressman (Larry Oliver) and his wife (Barbara Brown).
The one person who comes close to matching Holliday is Crawford. Fresh from his success in All The King’s Men, he goes through the film like a freight train. His delivery and body language is in total opposition to relative restraint of everyone else.
The rest of the cast, including Holden, are strangely muted.
I am sure there are fans of this movie, but aside from Holliday, this movie lost me. When I went back to rewatch it, the back half was a complete blank to me. It might have to do with the idealism of the piece, but it just does not carry the same charge once the film turns into an extended, earnest tour of DC landmarks.
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