The Critics' Corner on IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU

"The comedy situation is worked for all the laughs it's worth by Scripter Garson Kanin and Director George Cukor. It gets more from the faultlessly schooled comedy of Actress Holliday and a fresh, sharply timed performance by Actor Jack Lemmon, making his screen debut. In It Should Happen to You, Judy plays, for the fourth time in a row, essentially the same poor man's Pygmalion that won her an Oscar® two years ago for the screen version of her 1946 Broadway hit, Born Yesterday. Practice has made her almost perfect in the part. She seems an incarnation of the big-city blonde who is so dumb that she doesn't even know she's beautiful." - Time, January 25, 1954.

"The theme of It Should Happen to You is marvelous. It is much more than a tasteful diversion. If you look carefully you see the whole mechanism of celebrity against a background of the absurd. The moral of the story is that it is easier to find glory than to justify it, and that such glory has little meaning since it is acquired within a society that is unconscious of its absurdity. Cukor, the director, and Garson Kanin, the writer, have invented a curious, eccentric, even absurd, character for the actress. If we laugh at her countless blunders, she inspires enough sympathy to keep us going during the "dead" times that are necessary to set up Kanin's gags...It Should Happen to You is a masterpiece. To keep up the rhythm for ninety minutes with no letup, to keep the smiles constant even between laughs, to direct people that way...that takes a master." - Francois Truffaut, The Films in My Life.

"This Garson Kanin satire on American publicity methods is brilliantly directed by Cukor and contains one of Judy Holliday's best roles." - Georges Sadoul, Dictionary of Films.

"Judy Holliday in a pleasantly erratic satirical comedy; the targets - advertising, TV, and urban gullibility - are rather easily pinked, but the scenarist, Garson Kanin, and the director, don't loiter over them for long. (Still, the film runs down)." - Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies.

"Garson Kanin's script doesn't really bite hard enough in its satire of TV and its eager promotion of the nonentity celebrity, nor - after a wonderful opening - does the comedy have anywhere much to go. Bright moments and irresistible performances, though, with Lemmon...making a superb foil for Holliday as the solemn documentary filmmaker who observes, loves and is baffled by her." - Tom Milne, TimeOut Film Guide.

"One of the funniest films to come out of Hollywood." - Life.

"...the laugh range is from soft titters to loud guffaws as Cukor's smartly timed direction sends the players through hilarious situations...Fresh angles belt the risibilities while dialog is adult, almost racy at times." - Variety Movie Guide.

"Likeable comedy which starts brightly and slowly falls apart, disappointing considering the credentials of the talents involved and the satiric possibilities of the plot." - Halliwell's Film & Video Guide.

Awards and Honor

It Should Happen to You was nominated for an Oscar® in 1955 for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White, Jean Louis.

It Should Happen to You was also nominated for an award by the Writers Guild of America for Best Written American Comedy - Garson Kanin.

by John Miller