The Solid Gold Cadillac

Rating:
Summary: Almost Solid Gold
Review: To begin with, I wish these so-called reviewers would stop giving away the plots of the movies they extol! That said, this is a rare case (the 1st of its kind?) of a movie being better than the play it was based on. The general framework was of course the same, but in the play Judy Holliday's part was taken by Josephine Hull, a very funny little old lady (who also scored both on Bway and on the screen in "Harvey" and "Arsenic and Old Lace," to name the only 2 that I know of), and the love interest on stage was only hinted at around the edges, it blossomed in the film. One problem, there simply were no witty lines, either in the play or the movie. This is odd for Kaufman (though the play was produced in 1953, very late in his career), but about par for Burrows (early in his career). But still it was clever and interesting, the play had more structure than the movie (typical of Kaufman), but the movie did things with the plot that were suggested but left undone in the play, which surprised me very much and made me wonder about Kaufman. Also the flick left out all the naughty words which I'm sure Hull barked out with delicious abandon! (Note: Kaufman co-wrote the play, Burrows adapted it for the screen.) This I think was more a sit-com than an actually witty Kaufman comedy. And finally, Judy Holliday did NOT play a "dumb blonde"! She only did that in "Born Yesterday."