Born Yesterday: Comedy in 3 Acts

by Garson Kanin

Book Overview

THE STORY: The vulgar, egotistic junkman Harry Brock has come to a swanky hotel in Washington to make crooked deals with government big-wigs. He has brought with him the charming but dumb ex-chorus girl Billie, whose lack of social graces embarrass

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822201364
• ISBN13: 9780822201366
• Release Date: October 1951
• Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service
• Length: 89 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Lovely adjunct reading to the movie version.

After reading the slightly more racy and politically-charged play, upon which the 1950 movie "Born Yesterday" was based, I can only sigh that I can't travel back in time to see Judy Holliday perform the role of Billy Dawn on stage. If you have not seen the 1950 movie, do so immediately. Your life, is, as of now, incomplete. If, like me, you are already a fan of the movie which earned Judy Holliday the Best Actress Oscar in 1950, and have never read the stage play, order this script right now. You will gain an whole new insight into the character of Billie Dawn and of the post-World War II America in which she lived.

Comedy in Three Acts

12m, 4 w (flexible casting) The vulgar, egotistic junkman, Harry Brock, has come to a swanky hotel in Washington to make crooked deals with government big-wigs. He has brought with him the charming but dumb ex-chorus girl Billie, whose lack of social graces embarrasses even Harry. Billie must be taught some of the amenities, and a few of the basic bits of information. The young, and idealistic magazine reporter Paul Verrall, who has been investigating political skullduggery and is interested in Brock's activities, agrees, for a salary, to educate Billie. He finds Billie has a natural honesty and a frank streak in her, and she begins to learn about history, politics, and what Harry really is and what he wants. At a dramatic moment she rebels against being merely a tool in Harry"s crooked schemes and refuses to sign the documents which she has come to learn are part of an ambitious effort to defraud the public. This precipitates a crisis, as Billie readies to leave Harry for a new life of her own. Harry's reaction takes the only form he knows: physical violence. Billie now knows she can no longer have anything to do with Brock, and realizes she and Paul have fallen genuinely in love. Just before she leaves Harry, she helps Paul get hold of incriminating documents of Harry's which will result in scandal and disaster. At the end, Paul and his promising pupil turn their backs on the anti-social and anti-democratic Brock and strike out on their own. -- from book's back cover