I watched this without very many expectations and was really surprised at what a really good movie it was. Judy Holiday is delightful in her standard role of the not so dumb blond. Her This was Jack Lemmon's first film and you see a star in the making. He stands out in every scene and I'm sure that the audiences in the 50's were looking forward to seeing him again. What you don't see is that he would not only become a great comedic actor but one of the greatest of all time in every kind of role. I really enjoyed his reaction in the Macy's scene when she was overwhelmed by people wanting her autograph even though most of them had no idea why they wanted it. Peter Lawford does a fine job as well. Handles the role of the failed seducer as would be expected. Although he got second billing he is overshadowed by the talent of Lemmon.

There's always plenty going on beneath the surface of a Garson Kanin script. And here, as in the eternally underrated Tom, Dick and Harry and The Rat Race, his real subject is the American Dream. Judy Holliday, who originated the lead in Kanin's Born Yesterday on stage and won an Oscar for it on screen, plays Gladys Glover, a newly-unemployed model whose plan to make a name for herself involves just that: plastering her name across a Columbus Circle billboard. It brings her fame, but as beau Jack Lemmon suggests in one telling, prescient exchange, she hasn't done anything to warrant it. And anyway, isn't it OK to be part of the crowd? The dialogue is absolutely scintillating, the satire spot-on and the performances from Holliday and Lemmon (in his big screen debut) spectacular.

Lemmon was excellent as the chimp at the zoo. He jumped on the fencing like a total idiot, and I feel that this is one of those good acting assignments that a director would ask: "Be a chimp at the zoo. Be a robot in a laboratory. Be an alien from outer space." You get the picture. Lemmon even asked the crowd to throw peanuts at him, but alas, they got carried away. But I digress . . .Lawford smarmy. I liked his character better in "Good News". The car in this movie was fabulous. Gladys should have known she would be taken for a ride, and not in the innocent sense. Lemmon was right that Lawford was a masher, and Gladys was too naive to see it.Judy the greatest. She also had a great dramatic part in "Adam's Rib", being questioned on the witness stand by Katharine Hepburn. In "It Should Happen", Judy is that wide-eyed bumpkin with a naive notion of NYC fame. Today, in stereotypical parlance, she wouldn't be walking in the park alone, and talking with strangers. Her bare feet would be running into used "medical" needles and other such trash. She might certainly be hit up by panhandlers and other such bums.In this movie, Judy meets up early with an idiot who only wants to fight with her in the park. Later, she meets him again at the water fountain. Maybe today, he would catch a disease at the fountain. Good thing I never saw him again in the movie.Gladys certainly had faith in herself. Even if no one else did, all of a sudden when she showed the cash she was almost taken seriously. Too bad Lawford was such a schmuck to want to do her out of her famous 15 minutes.I liked the singing parts between Judy and Lemmon. Did they do their own singing? They are all gone now. Judy, Lemmon and Lawford. I do like to look back at their old movies.12/10

Judy Holliday was very lucky that she and Garson Kanin worked together so frequently. He had written the Broadway play BORN YESTERDAY that made her a stage star. He wrote the screenplay for her first major film, ADAM'S RIB, with his wife Ruth Gordon. Aided immeasurably by the directing of George Cukor, their success record continued in 1954 with IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU. While BORN YESTERDAY dealt with political corruption, and ADAM'S RIB with the equality of the sexes in the law (in the extreme case of the use of the so-called "unwritten law"), IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU is about the nature of fame and notoriety in modern society.Gladys Glover (Judy) gets the idea of renting a large billboard near New York City's Columbus Circle, and having her photograph put on it. She's not afraid of doing such a nutty idea - she is a professional model. But her billboard would be advertising just her - not a product or company. The billboard has traditionally been used as the central ad-board for a soap corporation, owned by aristocratic and handsome Peter Lawford. He proceeds to try to romance Judy to get her to give up her lease of the board (which will end in a few months). But the huge degree of notice the board brings to Judy turns her life around. Although she has no message for the public, the public embraces her.The one active critic she meets is a good looking young documentary maker, who can't see what she is gaining by this. It is not that Judy needs fame - she seems quite level headed. Moreover, the young man is growing jealous at the attentions showed by Lawford to her. He's a really nice young fellow (who would appear in another film with Judy shortly afterward). His name was Jack Lemmon. Usually people thinking of Lemmon's long career recall MR. ROBERTS as his first role. His performance as Ensign Pulver did win an Oscar, but he had made about three movies before that film, and his first role is here.Michael Shea is also in the film, as a critic who first dismisses Judy as a fiction, like "Kilroy", but subsequently becomes an evil genius to her - becoming her overly forceful agent. And Judy does have to go through some real soul searching here as she determines whether notoriety and fame is worth the trouble it brings.The film is funnier than this description may suggest. It ranks behind THE SOLID GOLD CADILLAC and BORN YESTERDAY as her best comic performance, completing an interesting trilogy commentary on society in the U.S. at mid-century.