Born Yesterday (1950)

A millionaire thug visits Washington DC to make a shady deal with a crooked congressman. He worries that his dumb showgirl girlfriend (Judy Holliday) will embarrass him and screw things up, so he hires the pest reporter (William Holden) teach her something. Will love … yes, love will bloom.

Judy Holliday appeared in the Broadway version of the story but studio execs weren’t interested in taking a chance on an unproven commodity. But Katherine Hepburn beefed up her role in Adam’s Rib (basically the same character) to demonstrate that she could handle it. It worked, she got the role, and won the Oscar, Marisa Tomei style.

A very surprising element is how racy the script is by 1950’s standards. In the first scene between Holliday and Holden’s Billie and Paul she asks if he is a gigolo. Later she outright propositions him. Stage adaptations seemed to be able to get away with this sort of thing. See The Moon is Blue. Seriously, it’s pretty good.

Here again we have the trope where a smart person throws a couple books and big words at a dummy and transforms them into a deep thinker. We suspend our disbelief because despite Billie’s amusingly poor diction, we sense that she is smarter than that. Also, unlike My Fair Lady, the romance is plausible.

Born Yesterday is smart and witty, and the principles give excellent performances. I wanted to like it more than I did, and I don’t know what stopped me. That’s not to say I didn’t like it. Maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe it was the clunky conclusion. I may watch it again, if for no reason than to see if it grows on me. As for now, AMRU 3.5.

“Are you one of these talkers - or would you be interested in a little action?”

My Fair Lady (1964)

A cockney flower girl (Audrey Hepburn) overhears a linguistics professor (Rex Harrison) boast he could teach her to speak proper enough English to work in a regular flower shop. The following day she arrives at his home to take him up on the offer. He bets his colleague that in six months he could pass her off as a lady at a royal ball. The game is afoot.

Audrey Hepburn was charming as hell, but wow was she miscast. I don’t believe her for a second as a cockney. Harrison reprised his role from the Broadway musical but the studio felt Julie Andrews was too much of an unknown to play Eliza on the big screen, which wasn’t wrong. Even if asked, she was busy working on her first feature film. One complaint about the 35 year old Hepburn was that she was too old for the role. Again, not wrong as Eliza was twenty one. Nobody seemed to bat an eye, however, at the borderline elderly Harrison as the leading man. Ah, Hollywood!

At two hours fifty, My Fair Lady wasn’t too much of a chore to sit through. The only parts that dragged were the songs. I recognized some not realizing where they were from. Not being my thing, cutting ninety seconds from each song might be a good way to take ten or so minutes from the runtime.

In the end I was charmed by My Fair Lady. That’s not to say I don’t have my issues. Harrison’s Professor Higgins has no character arc. He starts as a pompous, self important ass and ends the same but “accustomed to her face”. Can you think of anything less romantic? The story is about social mobility. Eliza Doolittle is a misfit and knows it. This bothers her, but our professor is also a social outcast and is oblivious. His wealth, education, and position forgive his lack of social grace. He treats people poorly and doesn’t understand why that’s a problem.

The story in my head is of Eliza realizing she need not covet the respect of the idle rich and come to accept who she is. She needs diction but it’s Higgins who requires the personal growth. But that is not our story and it’s no use criticizing a film for its source material. But I still chafe at a young woman returning to the embrace of a jerk for him to treat poorly. Besides, Colonel Pickering seemed to be his true love.

My Fair Lady was a fantastic success. A big production movie with some genuinely good moments. It made a ton of money and earned eight Oscars, including best picture. Not for best actress, though. That went to Julie Andrews. AMRU 3.5.

What Price Hollywood? (1932)

Waitress Mary (Constance Bennett) is determined to break into the pictures. She waits on famed drunken director Max Carey (Lowell Sherman), weasels her way into an audition, and impresses a producer. The studio promotes her as their next big star. As her star rises, Max’ fades.

Sound familiar? That’s because major beats of this film were lifted for A Star is Born (1937), also produced by David O. Selznick, whom the original writers threatened to sue. Director George Cukor refused the 1937 version because of how similar the story was. He changed his tune in 1954. The only real difference here is that our Star doesn’t marry our charming drunk, who is a director rather than a performer. Other than that, we are talking about only a slight reimagining.

Star Mary’s love interest is played by Neil Hamilton. If the name is not familiar, people my age will immediately recognize his voice as the young, dashing Commissioner Gordon. He is smitten by Mary but struggles with her Hollywood friends and lifestyle. Their first date does not age well. Louise Beavers plays Mary’s maid, the only role legally allowed a chubby black woman back then. Surprisingly, this is the eighth film I’ve seen her in with a ninth coming soon. She was also in What Price Innocence? Were the rules of grammar different in the 1930’s?

I went into What Price Hollywood? with low expectations. It’s the lesser known version of a story I already knew. But as much as I liked Fredric March in his version, it's Constance Bennett who really shines here. But that's not to take anything away from Lowell Sherman. He was charming and charismatic as the tragic Max Carey. Lowell will tragically die less than two years later, his films mostly forgotten. It is unavoidable to compare the two films, and this one is wittier, snappier, and all around superior. I found the characters smart and likable, and that's a good thing. AMRU 3.5.

Mary: Why do you drink all the time? Can't you cut the heavy swilling?
Max: What, and be bored all the time?

Holiday (1938)

Johnny Case (Cary Grant) and Julia Seton meet, fall in love, and decide to marry while on vacation. Then the movie begins and they get to know each other. Turns out Julia is rich. Like Seton family rich, and she has ideas of poor Johnny Case following in old dad’s footsteps in business. But Johnny is a bit of a non-conformist and wants to play things his own way. Sorda like Julia’s non-conformist sister (Katharine Hepburn).

I wrote recently that I had grown tired of Rom-Coms, and wanted to avoid them for a while. But Holiday was already on the DVR so I knew it would be watched at some point. Lucky for me, George Cukor did Rom-Coms better than most and Holiday is a winner.

This was the beginning of the “Katharine Hepburn is Box Office Poison” era that started with Bringing Up Baby earlier in the year, and studio execs were concerned. The studio boss wanted to preemptively take out an ad in Variety asking “What is wrong with Katharine Hepburn?” but she warned that people might tell him. The movie didn’t fare well financially, likely because Johnny wanting to be a vagabond didn’t play well during the depression.

Holiday is a delightful film mostly because how likable the characters are. Not just Cary and Kate, but also Kate’s brother and Johnny’s friends, the Potters. Johnny’s plan didn’t make much sense to me but that didn’t matter. I liked him, and his friends. And in a Rom-Com, that’s all we can hope for.

“Johnny, when two people love each other as much as you do, anything that keeps them apart must be wrong.”

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Society gal Tracy (Katharine Hepburn) is getting remarried. Serious writer Macaulay (James Stewart) and his lady-friend photographer (Ruth Hussey) is forced to cover the story (the PHILADEPHIA story, as it were) for Spy magazine. The man to get the reporters inside is Tracy's estranged ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant). They cooperate in exchange for keeping a story about her father's dancing girl affair quite.

Hepburn left Hollywood after a string of bombs, which combined with not playing the Hollywood game, left her with no option. She landed on Broadway and starred in the play this movie is based on. She convinced her (boy?)friend Howard Hughes to buy the rights to the play and sell it to Hollywood for her to star in. It was a huge success and Hepburn was nominated for an Oscar.

The more I watch Grant the more impressed I become. He did mainly lighter fare (and for the most part the same character - the fast talking charmer), but he did it surprisingly well. He was nominated only twice for an academy award and never won. This I understand as he shied away from roles the academy likes to recognize. Eventually he did receive an Honorary ("oops, we missed you") Oscar, While he would never do a movie like Philadelphia, he certainly would never do The Philadelphia Experiment either.

Clearly, Hepburn knew her character well and George Cukor knew how to use the talent. Quick witted, smart, well acted, and well made. Very strong performances all around. The Philadelphia Story is among the best in the Romantic Comedy genre. AMRU 4.

"C'malong, Dexter, I know a formula that's said to pop the pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen."

Gaslight (1944)

Ten years after the unsolved murder of a singing diva, her hot young niece (hot young Ingrid Bergman) moves back into the stylish London house where it happened, with her new husband (Charles Boyer). A dashing detective (dashing Joseph Cotten), stunned by the niece's resemblance to her aunt, reopens the cold case.

Gaslight is based on a play (Gas Light, or Angel Street), and had already been made into a movie four years earlier. Under the terms of the agreement, the producers ordered the destruction of all prints of the previous film. They failed to get them all, and the 1940 version has lapsed into the public domain. I saw it next.

Gas lights, that is, the lighting mechanism where natural gas was piped into houses for lighting purposes, certainly plays a large role in the story. Not only do they pepper the screen with shots of men lighting them, they even play into the story. Our protagonist becomes convinced that someone else is in the house because the lights dim, as if someone lit one elsewhere. They also add great ambiance and all gothic horror movies should have had them rather than foolish candelabras and sometimes even electric lights, totally ruining the mood. Had they not been expensive, and occasionally suffocate people, burn down houses, and even blow them up, they'd be a great addition to any home! Act now, supplies are limited!

I learned a few things from watching this movie. First, that I am actually capable of saying the words "Angela Lansbury was hot". What a naughty bit of crumpet, she was! At 17 she quit her job in a local shop and launched her movie career. Secondly, and more importantly, I learned that I apparently have absolutely no friggin' clue what film-noir is. I'm classifying this sucker as a mystery (although not a terribly mysterious one). Melodrama, sure. Entertaining and well made movie, you bet! Film-noir? Doesn't smell like it to me. There is a detective and an element of claustrophobia, but hard boiled, pessimistic, and minimalist? It's set in the fashionable district of Victorian/Edwardian London. You know, the stuff dreams are made of. AMRU 4.

"I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to me."
"I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were dangerous to her."

Adam's Rib (1949)

Adam (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda (Katharine Hepburn) are married attorneys who find themselves on the opposite side of a headline grabbing court case. It seems a man was fooling around on his wife, she found out, found him with his lady-friend, and shot him. 

Tracy, sensing familiarity, takes his case. Hepburn, sensing irony, takes hers. Now, I love these two actors, really I do, but what must have been going through their minds? Imagine Tracy's wife going to this movie and saying to their two children "That's your bum of a father and the trollop he flashes around town. Today she is apparently AGAINST philandering husbands!" Unbelievable. 

I don't want to blow the story, but suffice it to say little in this court case played out vaguely the same as it would in a world that resembled reality. Also, I saw little chemistry between the two leads. Tracy at one point becomes so enraged at Hepburn that the movie loses what little humor it had. 

I liked their songwriter neighbor who is unabashedly woo'ing Hepburn right in front of Tracy. What a douche. He was wonderful. Also, I had a moment when Tracy and Hepburn were going about their daily life and one of them lit their stove. I thought for a moment, two high-powered lawyers and that's the only stove they can afford?, before I realized that in 1949, that WAS a good stove. 

Judy Holliday was great in a small role as the accused and abused wife but this wasn't Tracy or Hepburn's best work. AFI called this the seventh best romantic comedy ever. It's not a bad film by any means, but if I see this movie again it would be to figure out why others are so high on it. AMRU 3.