Behind the Camera on IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU

It Should Happen to You is significant for Jack Lemmon's film debut. At first, the actor, who had worked briefly in television, had a tendency to overact for the camera but Cukor soon convinced him that "less is more." The actor later remarked, "I've learned my craft from that advice. It's the hardest thing in the world to be simple, and the easiest thing in the world to act your brains out and make an ass of yourself." (From George Cukor by Gene D. Phillips). A perfect example of Cukor's approach to acting was demonstrated to Lemmon during a restaurant scene where Pete and Gladys argue. Cukor recalled, "They rehearsed it and did it very well, but I said, "I don't believe it, I don't believe one damn thing. Jack, what do you do when you get angry?" He said, "I get chills and cramps, I get sick to my stomach, but can't use that." "Oh," I said, "do that!" So in the height of fury he suddenly clutches his stomach, and it makes all the difference."

In a 1972 interview, George Cukor told Gavin Lambert about the little natural moments that come out in performances - as an example he described the shooting of the seduction scene in Adams' apartment in It Should Happen to You. "It so happened we had a property man on the picture who'd worked with The Three Stooges," Cukor said (in Gavin Lambert: On Cukor)."He said, "I have an idea, may I help on this?" I said, "Please do," and he suggested, "Let her take the earring off herself, so he can nuzzle her ear." So we did, and it made a terribly funny moment. Later in the scene she had to pour champagne down Peter Lawford's neck. We only have four shirts for Peter Lawford, so we could only shoot four takes, and it was tricky for the camera. On the last take I said, "Judy if you laugh, I'll just kill you, I'll kill you dead." Well, she didn't laugh, but she giggled, and it was absolutely great. I asked if she'd done it deliberately, in spite of what I'd said, and she didn't really know. Sometimes you get these very human things on the set."

It Should Happen to You features extensive location shooting in New York City, providing the level of realism that the story demands (especially given Pete's profession as a documentary filmmaker). Many dialogue scenes take place outdoors, and studio shooting against rear projection screens is apparent only in close-ups. Cukor saw the importance of the location filming, especially in regards to the real-life background characters: "We used Central Park as a character, as we did in The Marrying Kind [1952], and this time it was during a heat wave, which brings all the mad people out. You can see lots of mad people in the park and sitting on steps in front of houses."

In a charming scene in a bar, Pete is playing the piano and Gladys is seated next to him as they joyfully belt out a song. The song weaves in and out of their conversation in a natural and spontaneous fashion, taking advantage of the fact that Lemmon could play the piano and that Holliday had a wonderful singing voice. (The song was "Let's Fall in Love," written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen for the 1933 film of the same name). Though the scene seems almost improvised, Cukor later said, "we carefully rehearsed the whole thing over and over again to make it look spontaneous and unrehearsed."

By some accounts, Judy Holliday and Peter Lawford struck up an intimate relationship on the set of It Should Happen to You, further damaging Holliday's already strained marriage.

It Should Happen to You premiered in New York City on January 15, 1954.

by John Miller