This morning I started watching a movie called “It Should Happen to You” on Turner Classic Movies.
Opening Scene: Woman in park despairs that she’s moved to NYC, just lost her job, and is now stuck with “becoming a nobody.” This is especially disheartening when you hear that she moved to the city to be somebody–”to make a name for herself.” Turns out, she’ll just have to go back home, work in the shoe factory, marry the first guy who asks, and that’ll be the end of it, she says.
Enter Good Looking, Nice Guy: An incredibly young Jack Lemmon (one half of Grumpy Old Men duo) in his first film debut (think George-Clooney handsome with the same feisty and funny way), is a young documentary filmmaker who listens and provides encouragement. You’ll get where you’re going if you want it bad enough, he says.
The Marketing Stunt: As he walks away, the distraught Gladys Glover gazes up at a giant billboard that says “for rent.” Gladys imagines her name on the board, and then decides, well, why not? So she takes her life savings of $1,000 and has her name put on the billboard and quickly becomes obsessed with it. “GLADYS GLOVER” the sign shouts. As the lovely, funny, quick-paced version of what a romantic comedy SHOULD be unravels, Jack Lemmon’s character vents his frustration with her insatiable desire for fame for fame’s sake. His warning–it’s better to be respected on one block than known for nothing all around the world–falls on deaf ears. There are a few great scenes of business meetings where the suits with cigarettes underestimate the success-hungry girl that date the film quite a bit with their comical chauvinism.
Columbia Circle - It Should Happen to You
Careful-What-You-Wish-For Moment: When her clever marketing plan pays off, we see the young and hungry Gladys finds fame to be a cheap replacement for real life. Big-time CEO Peter Lawford tries to take advantage of our girl just as Gladys reaches her breaking point saying, there’s two kinds of people in this world: people who do anything to make a name for themselves, and people who do almost anything. She, inevitably, decides on the latter. In what is an endearing denouement, the budding filmmaker Lemmon creates a documentary just for Gladys proclaiming he’s in love with her, but that it’s too little, too late. You’ll have to watch the film for the conclusion (not hard to guess), but the entire flick is great.
My Point: It’s cool to see a movie from 1954 (the year my mom was born!) still resonate so much: a story about two young people living in small apartments trying to make a name for themselves and not lose themselves in the process. It’s got one incredibly clever marketing stunt, so simple-minded that today we consider similar efforts chic and brilliant. But really, the reason I’m posting this is that I’ve just had the most entertaining Saturday morning in a while. It beat catching up on Top Chef (go team Europe!). (Steve slept through the whole thing in preparation for the Super Bowl later, which leads me to believe that this is the perfect movie for those, who like me, were looking for an alternative to the butt-slapping NFL mania.)
Closing Scene: This bit of dialogue (watch the actual clip here) takes place one evening in a bar and pretty much sums it all up…
Gladys: “Three days more and I’m nobody again.”
Pete Shepherd (Jack Lemmon): “Yeah, well, I’ll show you how to enjoy that.”
Gladys: “If I only had the money…”
Pete Shepherd: “It isn’t a question of money, believe me, kid.”
Gladys: “…I could have been on the covers of matchboxes, pencils, anything you can think of…”
Epilogue: It’s a nice reminder, as we’re fiendishly seeking out just what we KNOW we want, not to ignore what we find along the way that might be even better.
The End.
Closing shot for "It Should Happen To You"
