How I felt about it. There are two related movies here. "Mr. Graft Goes to Washington (and Gets His)" explains itself. Also, we have "airhead reads books, yet still has a voice equivalent to fingernails against chalk."
You get the drift. I actively dislike Born Yesterday. I don't like the three main characters, and I don't like the crap dished out about democracy for sale. It partly is, partly isn't, and it's maddening complicated. But to read quotes from long dead leaders, and to believe that any government, or any life, could follow purely down their path, you must have been born yesterday. Our founding fathers (including the here-beatified Thomas Jefferson) were slaveowners, and restricted the vote to men of property. Some democracy.
I admit it. I found all three leads tiresome. The "menace" businessman, who is all bluster, boasting, and brutality. Real menaces are far more crafty. Then there's the incorruptible reporter, who thinks Judy Holliday is wonderful even though her speaking voice reminds me of an old criticism of Crosby, Stills, and Nash: "Their harmonies are like needle pricks upon the brain."
Holden believes he has the upper hand morally, but he's not above taking a big salary, then double-crossing his employer. That's duplicity, and perhaps Judy Holliday should look up the word in her unabridged dictionary.
Judy Holliday was a good actress. The problem is her character. She is forced to talk like the stereotype of a dumb blonde. And if she's not really a dumb blonde, then why offend our ears with the screeching lingo?
Even though watching Born Yesterday is as painful to me as enduring an eposide of the sitcome "Full House", I have given it (at least from my perspective) an objective grade of 51. The basic themes of the movie are valid. A trusted accomplice of a flawed, powerful man gets an eye-opener, courtesy of a third party unwittingly led into the inner circle.
Also, the movie is made with the best of intentions, and the production quality is suitable. The problem is, the characters are caricatures. The bossman is too strident, the heroine too shrill, and Eliza Doolittle's Professor Higgins is far too smug. The best characters are drawn in shades of gray. I say start over, without Mussolini, Betty Boop, and Geraldo Rivera as role models.