Born Yesterday

Garson Kanin's Broadway hit was transferred to the screen with only a few passing nods to the stricter censorship required by films. Judy Holliday won an Oscar for her portrayal of Billie Dawn, a strident, dim-bulbed ex-chorus girl who is the mistress of millionaire junk tycoon Harry Brock ...more

Born Yesterday is remembered today primarily for Judy Holliday's Oscar-winning comic performance. At its release, though, it was considerably more controversial, generating protests that proclaimed the film Communist-sympathizing for suggesting that American politics could be corrupt. The core of the story is largely borrowed from George Bernard Shaw's -Pygmalion, with Broderick Crawford as the authority figure who hires William Holden to tutor the coarse but good-natured Holliday. The film's ...more