OVP: Bells are Ringing (1960)

Film: Bells are Ringing (1960)
Stars: Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, Fred Clark, Eddie Foy, Jr., Jean Stapleton
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Scoring)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I see a lot of movies (clearly), and write about a lot of movies (again, clearly), but in writing those reviews, I sometimes run into trouble when I try and rate the pictures.  Take Bells are Ringing, a movie I saw recently for the first time which was the end of producer Arthur Freed's long run with both MGM and Vincente Minnelli (13 of Minnelli's directorial efforts were produced by Freed, including absolute classics like Meet Me in St. Louis and An American in Paris).  The movie itself is so much fun, a real blast of a musical the kind of which they don't make anymore, but sadly at the time was so passé that the movie was a flop when it came out.  But the real revelation here is Judy Holliday, who of course shouldn't be a revelation at this point (Holliday is always terrific), but I feel like this is an entirely different level of performance from what we know of her.  So come along as I decide whether one performance can elevate an entire film's score.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Ella Peterson (Holliday), a phone switch operator at an answering service who takes on multiple different personalities, but not her own, while trying to solve the problems of the customers of Susanswerphone (it's fun to say).  She is in love with a playwright who calls in named Jeffrey Moss (Martin).  After being chastised for being too involved in her customers lives by her boss Sue (Stapleton, who is divine in a supporting role that leans into her natural comedic gifts), Ella sneaks over to Jeffrey's house to ensure he doesn't botch an interview.  She uses a fake name & doesn't tell him that she's the woman from the answering service, and of course they fall in love, even though they come from completely different worlds.  The film ends with them getting together, of course, but first Ella learns that she needs to love herself first-and-foremost, and be there for Ella.

The movie is a little bit heavier than you'd think for a movie featuring Dean Martin and directed by Minnelli, especially during this era of his career.  The Ella self-growth is real, and it's entirely driven by bravura work from Holliday.  This is a stupendous performance, with Holliday acing the musical numbers and bringing some solid comedic acting chops to her performance, with just a hint of sadness.  She makes Ella incredibly modern for a woman whose job is so antiquated most younger audiences wouldn't even know it once existed.  I love the way that while Martin's Jeffrey is who she ends up with in the end, really her ending is all about her-a woman who suddenly feels okay in her own skin-which is a great message for a musical comedy, a genre that frequently saw "a man" as the only answer to what a woman wants.

The film's musical numbers are all delightful, even if they're so loquacious (like "Drop That Name") that they'd be hard to sing along to.  My favorite song in the Bells are Ringing score has always been "Perfect Relationship," which is a triumph as sung by Holliday, and richly felt.  It's a bit of a pity that not only was this movie a flop (enough to ensure Freed never made another musical), but it also ended Holliday's very brief career in the movies, as this was her final picture.  She was already supposedly ill while filming it, but while she'd live another five years, they were challenging ones-she'd die at the age of 43 after a long battle with breast cancer.  If you haven't already seen her in this, do yourself a favor.  I'm giving it 4 stars (some of Martin's character work isn't as clean as it should be), but Holliday is giving a 5-star performance and a great sendoff to a unique actress.

OVP: It Should Happen to You (1954)

Film: It Should Happen to You (1954)
Stars: Judy Holliday, Jack Lemmon, Peter Lawford, Michael O'Shea
Director: George Cukor
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I know what you're thinking.  You're looking at that title and thinking, "Wait, 1954?  Did he get this wrong?  Isn't this the name of that romantic comedy with Bridget Fonda from the 90's?" and you'd be close, cause that was what I initially thought, but there's a big difference between should and could in this case.  Instead, here we have what may be one of the most prescient films I've ever seen from the 1950's.  The film, about a woman who simply wants her names in lights and to be well-known, even if there's no actual reason for her new-found fame, is wildly predictive of the advent of reality television and "famous for the sake of being famous" in a way few films ever prove to be so prophetic.  While the film itself is pretty run-of-the-mill (though anchored by strong work from Judy Holliday, the film's plot is almost eerie in the way that it predicts our current Kardashian-obsessed present.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place in Manhattan, circa the 1950's, when a young woman, down-on-her-luck Gladys Glover (Holliday) decides to impetuously buy a billboard for $630 with her name splashed across it over Columbus Circle.  Nothing more than just her name, but it starts to garnish some attention.  She's pursued by a perplexed documentary filmmaker named Pete (Lemmon) who is infatuated by her but cannot get over her utter fascination with publicity and fame, instead thinking that she should crave privacy and thinking she's a bit vain for all of this.  Gladys continues to stumble toward fame when a wealthy executive named Evan Adams III (Lawford) decides he wants her billboard, and as a result offers her six huge signs throughout New York City that state her name (and of course, being that this is a romantic comedy and we need a caddish foil, Lawford also starts to fall for Holliday).

This creates a swirl surrounding Gladys, and soon everyone in New York wants to know who the girl with the billboards is, and soon she becomes well-known, appearing on television, primarily as the object of ridicule, though initially she doesn't seem to know or care.  After a while she becomes a household name, appearing in advertisements as the "All-American Girl" but after Evan makes a pass at her, she decides that this life isn't quite for her, and that she would prefer life with Pete.  A couple of bits of chasing her fella (including an air-writer with a message "Pete Call Gladys Please") leaves Holliday in Lemmon's arms, and us with our happily ever after.

I have a few things to say about this film before we get to the costumes.  One, I'm in love with how much this mirrors the future careers of women like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian (minus the sex tapes).  There is absolutely no reason for Gladys's fame.  She's not a singer or a dancer or an actress-there's nothing interesting about her except that she's attractive and that she was clever enough to put her name on a billboard.  While the idea of "famous for the sake of famous" wasn't an alien concept in 1954 (women like Zsa Zsa Gabor and Brenda Frazier had managed to make names for themselves in this way), this mirrored the rise of the Kardashians far more than either of those two earlier women.

The second thing is that I have now watched three films (the others are here and here) where a woman is celebrated for giving up her career for the happiness of a man.  I'd say that celebrating this has changed, but this film is brand new and does the same thing.  This is something I hadn't noticed very often before, but with three films where it becomes a key plot point, I realize that this is a depressingly common trope across all of cinema (everything from Notting Hill to Titanic to Roman Holiday involves a woman trying to deplete herself to let a man enter her world).  Someone should really find a way to make a film where a man has to change for a woman and give up part of his happiness for hers pretty soon to start to balance a century's worth of cinema.

The movie's sole Oscar nomination was for Best Costume design, and it was probably due in part to the incredible reputation of the designer, Jean Louis, than for anything else.  Louis would create iconic looks for Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, and his eventual wife Loretta Young, and here is working with the woman who got him his first Oscar nomination in Born Yesterday (Louis would win only one Oscar, also for working with Holliday in The Solid Gold Cadillac).  The looks of Holliday are immaculate if a little bit blase by the standards we usually hold Oscar too.  I love the way that she is always so fashionable, even in the opening scenes-a girl who wants her name on a billboard is going to be looking perfect to begin with, and everything seems to be a cavalcade of the chic and modern.   The men and basically all other characters in the film aren't what you'd consider interesting, but Holliday looks terrific.

Those are my thoughts on the charming if simple movie-what about you?  Do you ever watch movies from the 40's and 50's and think "how did they know?!?"?  Are you as equally disturbed by the "woman gives up her career" trope within nearly all of romantic cinema?  And what did you think of Jean Louis' costumes?  Share in the comments!