Born Yesterday (1950)

 George Cukor's "Born Yesterday"

By the time George Cukor's "Born Yesterday" was released in 1950, American cinema was frothing with bleak and nihilistic pieces that were birthed from the film noir movement. Even Hollywood films that weren't tagged with this moniker of 'film noir' borrowed elements of its style to fit the contemporary sentiment of cynicism and a growing distrust of the American institution. Perhaps this is why "Born Yesterday" and its complete throwback to 1930s-style buoyancy feels so refreshing. It acknowledges the corruption taking ahold of institutional structures (along with the corruption of the individual) while also being sanguine towards the power every person holds to change their landscape simply by changing themselves.

"Born Yesterday" stars Judy Holliday in the role of Billie Dawn, an uneducated young woman who is partners with uncouth, older, wealthy junkyard tycoon, Harry Brock. Harry is in Washington DC with Billie as he attempts to buy a congressman. However, Billie and her uneducated behavior embarrasses Harry and he hires Paul, a journalist, to educate her. Paul and Billie end up becoming romantically interested in one another and Billie is all the smarter thanks to Paul's teaching. Billie becomes so interested in learning about American history and American values that she begins to realize how much Harry is taking advantage of those values. Billie and Paul then hatch a plan to catch Harry in his own corruption.

At times, the attraction to American values and the 'government of the people' sentiments that Billie adopts through Paul can be a bit too on the nose. As in, it can come across a little cheesy or traditional. However, the thematic point the film is making seems to provide an antidote to any eyerolls to these sentiments. It was becoming increasingly clear by the public that American values were becoming corrupted by monopolistic practices, shady government deals, and private business owners becoming too powerful in the realm of politics. This is obviously something that has yet to go away. But what the film seems to suggest is that, although we cannot do anything to stop it through any single acts individually, we can certainly educate ourselves and better our environment in the immediacy of our domestic lives.  

Like I said, the throwback to 1930s and early 1940s Hollywood studio films might seem a bit reductive to the evolving nature of American cinema at the time. Good was good. Bad was bad. Mean was mean. Right was right and wrong was wrong. Things seem a bit oversimplified compared to the more emotionally and morally complex films that were coming out of noir-inspired American cinema at the time. However, that's exactly why it works. The film is saying it doesn't take someone who was born yesterday to understand the difference between right and wrong, between just and corrupt. Although it may seem like a throwback, "Born Yesterday" illustrates the significance of liberating yourself from the haze of uneducated coasting that many Americans would rather do than engage in the world around them. It's easy to call the world around you too complex to engage with, but the film notions that nothing is too difficult to understand. Morality is not so complicated that one becomes complacent in corruption. 

Perhaps this is why I liked the film, despite the seemingly reductive elements of its thematic conceits. It attempts to simplify at a time when things were getting more and more complicated. This is not always a bad thing. In fact, in the case of "Born Yesterday," it's quite endearing.