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• Dumb Blonde? I think not!

  • Tara
  • 12/28/12

  This film brings the reality of emotionally/psychologically abusive relationships to its audience in a way that is much easier to swallow than most Hollywood dramas. There are so many hilarious moments throughout the movie that you simply cannot be depressed by the heavy underlying subject matter. Broderick Crawford plays an adequate dumb bully, not fantastic but pretty good. I can't stop quoting his line, "Do what I'm telling you!" William Holden's calm, cool manner suggests that he follows the advice of Mark Twain to never argue with a fool. He lacks some of the passion that one might expect from a Hollywood romance but it proves true to his rational character. But Judy Holliday...Judy Holliday is absolutely brilliant in her role as the beautiful but uneducated and abused fiance of Crawford's character. I truly believe Holliday was born to play this part and it could not have been played by anyone else. The scene in which Billie meets the congressman and his wife, the scene in which Billie wants to look up the word "constituent", and the card-playing scene are very amusing. But my favorite part...rewind, rewatch, laugh again...is when Judy Holliday says, "Double Negative! Right?" - in that voice that only she can do - and flutters her eyelashes when she is told she is right. (I've tried to flutter my eyelashes like that...I can't quite get it right.) The ending result is that warm feeling that you get when you realize that despite the evil that exists in this world, we still live in a pretty great country where we can still educate ourselves and rise above our circumstances; that we don't have to be bullied and we can even laugh, have fun, and find love.

• Born Yesterday

  • Dashiell Barnes
  • 10/12/12

  A funny & insightful screwball comedy. Holliday won the Best Actress Oscar as the quintessential "dumb blonde," Crawford & Holden are believable in their roles. Like the stage play by Kanin, Mannheimer enriches the story with awareness of the political situation of the U.S., and director Cukor makes the story alive. A terrific film all around. I give it a 4.5/5.

• Relevant today as it always has been!

  • RedRain
  • 6/24/12

  It is extremely rare that I give four stars to a film but this one deserves that rating in every way! It contains Judy Holliday's finest performance, much more spectacular than "Singing in the Rain." William Holden is terrific and Broderick Crawford excels but it's Holliday's film from the first second of the film! It displays the arrogance that is and always has been in Congress. It gives you a verbal and visual tour of our nation's capitol. Somehow, seeing the historic buildings in black and white makes them all the more impressive. Holliday has the ability to make you laugh and then tug at your heartstrings in the next moment. If you walk away from this film without a better understanding of what our country stands for, what those words on the panels of the Lincoln Memorial really mean, why education is truly important, how the powerful prey on the weak, to say nothing of appreciation of this performance as being one of the finest in all of film, you just don't get it! What a film! What a magnificent actress!

• 2 minutes cut

  • Steve B
  • 12/21/11

  The picture is one of my very favorites. However, you will notice that TCM quotes the length as 102 or 104 minutes. Somewhere along the line back in the '60s when it was first shown on TV somebody somewhere cut two minutes out of the original length of the film. One of the missing parts is where Billie Dawn says: "What do you think I was, BORN YESTERDAY?" Yes, that's correct, the line that gives the picture its title is missing from every showing I have seen on TV since the very first time back during the Punic Wars, a total of perhaps 15 showings. Anybody know where the two minutes went?

• Funny and entertaining.

  • Sharon
  • 11/10/11

  I stumble onto this movie around 2003 and I have enjoyed every moment of it. Judy Holiday is a great actress and she's an orginial. She wears very pretty and sophicated clothes in her movies. I enjoyed all the actors in this movie. I would suggest watching "The Solid Gold Cadillac" in which she starts also.

• Be Couth

  • Chris
  • 5/23/11

  Love It!!!!!!!!!!

• Crawford is overbearing and Holliday quite wearing

  • Jeff Boston
  • 2/20/11

  Courtesy of TCM, my initial viewing of "Born Yesterday" just concluded. Judy Holliday and Jean Hagen (2 years later in "Singin' in the Rain") both scored Oscar noms for playing essentially the same character with essentially the same voice. Holliday won, over Swanson, Davis, Baxter, and Parker. Odd that the characters from the four 1950 films from which they were nominated had a theme: Swanson was fixated in the past; Davis had her persona stealthily assumed by the scheming Baxter; Baxter was living a lie, existing as someone (or some thing) other than her herself; Holliday existed in the clutches of her domineering boyfriend; and Parker played what the other women played - a prisoner. Maybe Holliday won (Davis & Baxter cancelled each other out) because she was the only one who is able to really become free. "Born Yesterday" has 3 Oscar winners, with Crawford on the descent (I can't name another movie of his besides "All the King's Men," for which he won Best Actor the year before, and eventually went to TV) and Holden ascending (53's Best Actor Oscar and really the biggest movie star of the 1950s, consistently playing the American "Everyman" with a conscience and a brain). It's great that 1950's "Born Yesterday," smart and daring in 1950, dated and annoying now, is set in DC and plays up our nation's principles, especially with the advent of the Cold War just a few years before, China going communist the year before, and the Korean War starting the year the film was released. It is also ionic that Holliday was reading "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" on the interior wall of the Jefferson Memorial when she was later blacklisted from TV and radio for 3 years.

• Born Yesterday (1950)

  • James Higgins
  • 11/28/09

  This is a truly wonderful film, the character development is outstanding, the screenplay sublime, the acting is a dream come true. Judy Holliday is perfectly cast, as is Broderick Crawford. William Holden is appropriately subdued. So many classic scenes, like the gin rummy scene and the red marker and the newspaper. An absolte delight from start to finish., What a year 1950 was for actresses, three of my very favorite performances the same year - Holliday, along with Bette Davis in All About Eve and Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. I would have been happy if any of them won that year, as it turned out, it was Holliday for this gem.

• Timeless

  • Aquela
  • 4/23/09

  I absolutely love Miss Judy Holliday's performance. She pulls off the ditzy blond act, beautifully. William Holden shines beside Miss Holliday and this film is truly timeless.

• Great film

  • Brando4ever
  • 11/19/07

  Excellent film. Great romantic comedy. The performances are all excellent.

• Spectacular !

  • Brad E.
  • 8/28/07

  Judy Holliday's performance in this movie can be described in one word...SPECTACULAR ! The minute you start watching this movie you cannot take your eyes and attention away from her. Even as brash and vulgar as Broderick Crawford is and as lovable as William Holden is...its almost as though they aren't even in this film. I have to rate her performance in this movie as the best of all times, bar none. Thank you Judy ! Thank you...

• JUDY HOLIDAY IN HER FINEST PERFORMANCE

  • Jim Smith
  • 1/31/06

  Of all the many female comediennes, none can compare to Miss Judy Holiday: Her wit for comedy in Born Yesterday demonstrates her love for the cinema. She personifies wit, laughter, and feminine beauty all rolled into one by this lovely actress. I highly recommend Born Yesterday as a classic cinema masterpiece of comedy and intrigue focusing on the political escapades inside Washington DC

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