It Should Happen to You (1954)

Years ago, while going through Dean Martin’s filmography (I went through a phase of being obsessed with his work), I stumbled upon Bells Are Ringing. I saw it for Dean, and while I liked him in it, I was bowled over by his co-star, Judy Holliday. Why hadn’t I even heard of her before? Why hadn’t anyone told me about her? How come she isn’t better-known?

Since then, whenever I’ve heard of a Judy Holliday film, I’ve hurried off to see if it’s available online. This is the latest: a delightful rom-com, starring Judy Holliday opposite Jack Lemmon in his first big role, about a young woman who wants to make a name for herself. Literally.

The story begins in New York’s Central Park, where Gladys Glover (Judy Holliday) is wandering around, in her stockinged feet, tossing peanuts to pigeons. She sits down next to some random man and because he’s irritable and passes snide remarks about her feeding the pigeons, walking barefoot, etc, Gladys snaps back at him, giving as good as she gets.

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Ocean’s Eleven (1960)

Sabrina Mathew’s latest post is an interesting one that compares the two (1968 and 1999) versions of The Thomas Crown Affair. A couple of things from Sabrina’s review struck me: “The remake is keenly aware that the original got away with a lame robbery only because Steve McQueen planned it. So the remake fixes the problem with a daring art heist…”. And, ”The film is not just content with redoing the heist bit; it also wants to fix the romance by giving it a happy ending.” That reminded me of another film, again with two versions, for which I could quote Sabrina verbatim. Ocean’s Eleven, both the 1960 and 2001 versions, are also about robberies. And in this case too, the remake features a much sleeker robbery than the original—and a happier end.

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