Born Yesterday

I’ve said before that Judy Holliday died far too young. This was her first starring role (she only had seven) and she won the Oscar, beating out Anne Baxter and Bette Davis in All About Eve and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. (A strong year for actresses!) She is the mistress of blowhard junkyard brutish millionaire Broderick Crawford, who hires bookish William Holden to “educate” her. Big mistake. You can see it coming, but getting there is all the fun. She turns out to be ten times as smart as he is, and the problem for him is that he’s been putting all his holdings in her name. And, of course, she and Holden fall in love. Smart script, good acting all around, and Holliday’s inimitable ditsy genius character. A swell movie.