It Should Happen to You (1954)

I'll tell you why so serious

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

So finds out New York model Gladys Glover who simply wants to see her name up on a Columbus Circle billboard. Before you know it, just the revelation of who she is has the autograph hounds harassing her, placed into magazine advertisements as "the ordinary American girl", and ending up on a TV talk show with professional actors like Constance Bennett, Ilka Chase and Wendy Barrie, and stealing the show with her matter-of-fact personality that just tells it like it is. She's really a nobody, but the publicity machine works overtime to make the public think she is somebody. Her amateur movie photographer pal Jack Lemmon loves her for exactly who she is, while an advertising executive (Peter Lawford) goes after her simply to get that high-profiled traffic spot from her.At first, Gladys refuses to be intimidate by corporate America, but as her false fame rises, she begins to see herself for the phony she has become and desires to return to a normal life as a nobody. To play Gladys, Columbia studios cast the marvelously funny Judy Holliday who after "Born Yesterday" was the only actress they would consider to play the typical girl next door. She is a combination of Fanny Brice, Lucille Ball and Joan Davis, yet an original to herself. Holliday's comedy is special because she does not rely on pratfalls, only her own deeply felt honesty who puts her heart into everything she plays. Watch as she deals with reading an over-stuffed cue-card and is asked questions on the TV talk show about romantic relations.Lemmon in his film debut is the perfect young leading man for Holliday's easy-going personality. They really make what they do look easy, which in itself is truly difficult. Lawford adds appropriate lasciviousness to his charming but ultimately unlikable rogue. Wonderful character actors like Michael O'Shea, Connie Gilchrist and Frank Nelson ("Oooooh!") add on more humanity in supporting or bit parts.

There's always plenty going on beneath the surface of a Garson Kanin script. And here, as in the eternally underrated Tom, Dick and Harry and The Rat Race, his real subject is the American Dream. Judy Holliday, who originated the lead in Kanin's Born Yesterday on stage and won an Oscar for it on screen, plays Gladys Glover, a newly-unemployed model whose plan to make a name for herself involves just that: plastering her name across a Columbus Circle billboard. It brings her fame, but as beau Jack Lemmon suggests in one telling, prescient exchange, she hasn't done anything to warrant it. And anyway, isn't it OK to be part of the crowd? The dialogue is absolutely scintillating, the satire spot-on and the performances from Holliday and Lemmon (in his big screen debut) spectacular.

A documentary filmmaker in Central Park meets an unemployed young woman and inadvertently gives her an idea for self-promotion; she rents a large advertising space in Columbus Circle and has nothing but her name painted across it, resulting in curiosity, television spots, and a possible romance with a beauty soap czar. Screenwriter Garson Kanin fashioned this alleged satire about celebrity into a vehicle for Judy Holliday, who is deliberately at half-mast for a laugh (as always). Holliday's character is an unreal creation. While she is dazzled by the sight of her name on a billboard, our heroine is inherently virtuous, and is practically above deceiving the public-at-large with untrue advertisements or in accepting the advances of the Lothario (who doesn't seem to have any connection with her anyhow). She loves the movie-guy (played in a low-key by the debuting Jack Lemmon), who has convinced the girl that sudden fame comes at too high a price--particularly for him as the potential boyfriend of a starlet. It's the old "it's your career or me" ploy, and the laughs become non-existent as Holliday realizes her ambition was not to be famous but to be loved. The performances are nearly likable enough to make the picture an unobtrusive time-passer. George Cukor directed, in waning spirits. ** from ****

This is supposedly Jack Lemmon's first starring role and from the moment he appears you know it's going to be a great picture. (How ironic that such a great actor should debut using a movie camera!) Add to that the spark of Judy Holliday and the sparks start flying like a diamond in the sunlight. But, sadly, they are black and white sparks.Hopefully, that won't be offputting to too many people. But I'm afraid it will be. It's genuinely funny and endearing. Perfectly cast as you hate Peter Lawford for the skank I've always felt he was and immediately fall for Lemmon and Holliday. But because of one stupid decision to make the picture in black and white when (in 1954) it was common to make color movies...Especially when the script and stars are so colorful. Well, it's sad.So watch it, enjoy it and let the color of love at first sight brighten it up for you in spite of the lousy idea to shoot it in black and white.