In this installment of ‘Comparing Classic Cinema,’ we see films with the same costars have different approaches.
Jack Lemmon got his first major film role in 1954. This actor, who would go on to be a two-time Academy Award winner, got his start at 28 with Columbia Pictures. His first two films as lead were romantic comedies opposite Judy Holliday. The comedienne was already an established Broadway star and a Best Actress Oscar winner for her role in “Born Yesterday” (1950).
“It Should Happen to You” premiered on Jan. 15, 1954, and “Phffft!” was released on Nov. 10, 1954. Although these two films were released in the same year, they are very different from a moral standpoint, reflecting the changes which were taking place in the film industry.
Different Stories
Although these movies star the same lead couple, they have very different relationships in each film. In “It Should Happen to You,” Judy Holliday plays Gladys Glover, a funny young woman, who goes to New York to make a name for herself, and does this by putting her name on billboards. Jack Lemmon plays a documentary-maker named Pete Sheppard who falls in love with Gladys, but is frustrated by her craze for notoriety. In “Phffft!,” they play Robert and Nina Tracy, a successful married couple in New York, who get divorced after eight years of marriage at the beginning of the film. She is a television writer, and he is a lawyer.
