Rent It Should Happen to You! (1954)
3.6 of 5 from 71 ratings
1h 23min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
Can an aspiring model find happiness on a billboard?! That's what Gladys Glover (Judy Holiday) finds out in this delightful romantic comedy. Unable to find steady work as a model, Gladys devises an ingenious gimmick: she uses all of her savings to rent a large billboard overlooking New York City's Columbus Circle featuring her name. As it turns out, that billboard is in high demand - Evan Adams III's (Peter Lawford) company wants it for himself. With interest in more than just her career, Adams strikes a deal with Gladys whereby she acquires additional billboard locations. Under the guidance of a slick promoter (Michael O'Shea), Gladys becomes a national celebrity. Then she realises she must decide between her boyfriend (Jack Lemmon) and this exciting new life. - Actors:
- Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Peter Lawford, Michael O'Shea, Vaughn Taylor, Connie Gilchrist, Walter Klavun, Whit Bissell, Constance Bennett, Ilka Chase, Wendy Barrie, Melville Cooper, Chris Alcaide, George Becwar, Robert Berger, Leonard Bremen, Heywood Hale Broun, Chick Chandler, Edwin Chandler, Tom Cound
- Directors:
- George Cukor
- Producers:
- Fred Kohlmar
- Writers:
- Garson Kanin
- Others:
- Jean Louis
- Aka:
- A Name for Herself
- Studio:
- Columbia Tristar
- Genres:
- Classics, Comedy, Romance
- Collections:
- A History of Cinemas in Films, Cinema Paradiso's 2023 Centenary Club: Part 2, Cinema Paradiso's 2025 Centenary Club: January - March, A Brief History of Film...
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Reviews (1) of It Should Happen to You!
Lacklustre Comedy - It Should Happen to You! review by Steve
After she won her Oscar for Born Yesterday in 1951, Columbia pictures was stuck with the headache of what to do with Judy Holliday. The response was to insert her strident Brooklyn schtick into a series of lacklustre comedies of diminishing quality. This was again written by Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor, but it's a misfire.
Yet the themes are extraordinarily prophetic... Holliday plays a working girl who wants to be famous for being famous. Jack Lemmon is an ordinary guy who walks around New York with a portable camera filming everything he sees. What could be more internet? Though at the time it was Judy's dumb-kook persona which resonated.
It's a very slight lifestyle picture; an overextended daydream. There's some extraordinary b&w footage of Manhattan, particularly around Central Park. The theme of the banality of celebrity still registers. And it's interesting to see Lemmon's debut in the sensitive, nerdy loser role, which typecast his early career.
But the premise isn't explored with any intelligence, and Kanin's dialogue delivers zero laughs. His scripts are comedies of propriety. They assert 1950s expectations of social conformity. So Judy is always guarding her reputation. And those conservative values have not only vanished, but now feel tiresome.
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