mark.waltz 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.

arieliondotcom 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.

bkoganbing Jack Lemmon's feature film debut came in this sprightly comedy about getting 15 minutes of fame before Andy Warhol ever coined the phrase. With writing by Garson Kanin and direction by George Cukor, It Should Happen To You takes on the quality of a can't miss proposition.Cukor and Kanin are reunited with Judy Holliday and that trio gave us Born Yesterday four years earlier. Unlike in Born Yesterday, Judy's not a kept woman, in fact she wishes she was. She's just lost her modeling job and she commiserates with Jack Lemmon during a chance meeting in Central Park. Things would sure be a lot different if she was a celebrity, her name big as life on that billboard at Columbus Circle. The eternal light bulb goes off in her head. Judy takes all the money she has in the world and rents that billboard, splashing her character name, Gladys Glover, big as life all over Columbus Circle. Because that board is desired by advertising executive Peter Lawford, a peculiar combination of circumstances give Judy the celebrity she so craves. But is it really what she wants?Garson Kanin had some really brilliant things to say here about the difference between lasting fame and celebrity. Although the smooth talking Peter Lawford and the roughhewn Broderick Crawford from Born Yesterday are about as opposite in personality as you can get, both are really the same kind of ruthless people in getting who and what they want.Lemmon is third billed in the film behind Holliday and Lawford. But he functions in the same way, as Holliday's conscience and teacher. In the other film Holden teaches her about how bad Crawford is, in It Should Happen to You, he makes Judy see how her own values are so wrong.Best scene in the film is when Judy is on a panel show with real life celebrities Constance Bennett, Ilka Chase, and Wendy Barrie all playing themselves with Melville Cooper as a pompous doctor. Judy's blank expressions are priceless as the celebrities gossip, even better than the inane dialog she's given. There's also a nice performance by Michael O'Shea as a sleazy talk show host.Though It Should Happen To You covers a lot of the same ground as Born Yesterday, the lessons certainly bear repeating. I'd definitely try to catch this one and the on scene filming in Fifties New York definitely aid the story.It's the difference between Madame Marie Curie and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

theowinthrop Judy Holliday was very lucky that she and Garson Kanin worked together so frequently. He had written the Broadway play BORN YESTERDAY that made her a stage star. He wrote the screenplay for her first major film, ADAM'S RIB, with his wife Ruth Gordon. Aided immeasurably by the directing of George Cukor, their success record continued in 1954 with IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU. While BORN YESTERDAY dealt with political corruption, and ADAM'S RIB with the equality of the sexes in the law (in the extreme case of the use of the so-called "unwritten law"), IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU is about the nature of fame and notoriety in modern society.Gladys Glover (Judy) gets the idea of renting a large billboard near New York City's Columbus Circle, and having her photograph put on it. She's not afraid of doing such a nutty idea - she is a professional model. But her billboard would be advertising just her - not a product or company. The billboard has traditionally been used as the central ad-board for a soap corporation, owned by aristocratic and handsome Peter Lawford. He proceeds to try to romance Judy to get her to give up her lease of the board (which will end in a few months). But the huge degree of notice the board brings to Judy turns her life around. Although she has no message for the public, the public embraces her.The one active critic she meets is a good looking young documentary maker, who can't see what she is gaining by this. It is not that Judy needs fame - she seems quite level headed. Moreover, the young man is growing jealous at the attentions showed by Lawford to her. He's a really nice young fellow (who would appear in another film with Judy shortly afterward). His name was Jack Lemmon. Usually people thinking of Lemmon's long career recall MR. ROBERTS as his first role. His performance as Ensign Pulver did win an Oscar, but he had made about three movies before that film, and his first role is here.Michael Shea is also in the film, as a critic who first dismisses Judy as a fiction, like "Kilroy", but subsequently becomes an evil genius to her - becoming her overly forceful agent. And Judy does have to go through some real soul searching here as she determines whether notoriety and fame is worth the trouble it brings.The film is funnier than this description may suggest. It ranks behind THE SOLID GOLD CADILLAC and BORN YESTERDAY as her best comic performance, completing an interesting trilogy commentary on society in the U.S. at mid-century.