Born Yesterday's underlying ideas—a blend of Greek mythology and symbolic storytelling, drawing particularly from Pygmalion (inspired by Shaw) and Plato’s Cave—feel both classic and relevant to our current times. There's a moment when William Holden's character states, “I want everybody to be smart. I want 'em to be as smart as they can be. A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in.” This sentiment holds true now just as it did over 70 years ago—perhaps even more so; recent events like the covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown that we still exist in a very risky environment populated by many uninformed individuals. The film explores not only the beauty and depth found in language, both written and spoken, but also the influence of words and ideas. Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford), an unsophisticated, wealthy junkyard owner, travels to Washington with the intention of bribing a politician. He brings along his “fiancée” (though it’s more accurately described as a romantic partner; he does plan to marry her eventually, but only because a wife cannot be compelled to testify against her husband), Billie Dawn (Judy Holliday), an uneducated young woman. When she causes him embarrassment in social situations, Brock hires journalist Paul Verrall (Holden) to educate her. Billie intentionally remains ignorant (“[Harry] thinks I'm too stupid, huh? … He's right. I'm stupid, and I like it … I'm happy. I got everything I want … There's somethin' I want, I ask … So, as long as I know how to get what I want, that's all I wanna know.”), and in this way she shares more characteristics with the people trapped within Plato’s allegorical cave than with Eliza Doolittle. Therefore, Paul doesn’t simply focus on improving her vocabulary and pronunciation; he encourages her to read, learn, think critically, and ask questions, while director George Cukor challenges viewers to do the same. I rarely use the phrase ‘must-see’ when describing art (because it shouldn't feel like work), and Born Yesterday can certainly be appreciated for its artistic and technical qualities alone, but I would feel bad if I didn’t emphasize that this film comes as close to required viewing as any I’ve encountered. Most likely, nine times out of ten it will be like offering valuable things to people who won't appreciate them, but I still want to recommend it to as many people as possible, hoping that at least one person will respond positively, like the individual who received a seed that landed on fertile ground.

Source on TMDB