Holiday

Wit, insight, deft characterization, family misery, and social commentary all play a part in Holiday. The acting and script are superb -- all the characters are sympathetically drawn and interact in the foreground, while wealth and its "privileges" form the background.

Is love a social obligation? Or does it spring from sheer affinity? Should the acquisition of wealth be the summum bonum of experience -- or happen accidently, as the result of hard and honest work? These are the questions that will tease you, as you enjoy the gleaming intelligence of Katherine Hepburn and the polished insouciance of Cary Grant. Both are in top form!!!

What stands out in my recollection of this film is the theme of play. The stars are playful; they get acquainted among the toys in a playroom. The plot revolves around a holiday -- a chance for adults to play. There are plays on words. The Play is the Thing. Holiday is ultimately about the importance of play, in all its connotations: flexibility, acting out, silly behavior, continuous learning, freedom to be.

It is okay for adults to play sometimes, or do adults need "permission" to play?

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant on paper, I suppose, look like an odd pairing, but they were absolutely marvelous together, and "Holiday," directed by George Cukor, is no exception. Hepburn plays the unhappy, bored, but bright Linda in a dysfunctional, upper crust New York family. Her brother, Ned (Lew Ayres) is a miserable drunk, and her father controls the family with an iron hand and the ethic that money is their god. Their mother, who was like Linda, is deeply missed by her. Linda adores her younger sister, Julia, but has idealized her and doesn't see that she has the same upper class values as their father. When Julia brings home her fiancée, Johnny Case (Grant), it is immediately obvious to the audience (and later to the characters) that Johnny fell for the wrong girl.

"Holiday" is a film filled with heart, poignancy, and some warm humor provided by Johnny's friends, played by Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon, who come up against the society crowd at a party. Hepburn gives a beautiful performance as a young woman who wants to break free, and Ayres is heartbreaking as a man who can't. Grant, of course, is in the kind of role he did best in his early career, a young man from the wrong side of the tracks who is an independent spirit. He does some great gymnastics in the film, and he and Hepburn have a wonderful moment where she stands on his shoulders, and they fall into head rolls. Really marvelous stuff. The only problem I have is that the character of Julia, the younger sister, is so uptight and shallow, it's amazing that Johnny fell for her at all. Since they met while she was vacationing in Lake Placid, the audience must assume that out of the family home, she was more fun and playful, but when she comes up against her father, she falls right in with him.

Hepburn and Grant worked together in "Bringing Up Baby," "The Philadelphia Story," and this film - actually, three films in a row - plus "Sylvia Scarlett." One wishes they had appeared together even more. They had great chemistry.

This is such a sweet, funny, heartfelt movie. The first time I saw it, I immediately wanted to see it again. Like so many of Katharine Hepburn's movies, it's about the kind of love you don't often see in movies. Hers is a pure, sweet, and intelligent love, one which we see develop and with which, by the end of the movie, we wholeheartedly agree. Cary Grant is just delightful in his acrobatics and his naivete, and Hepburn has all of her idealism and wisdom, and proves once again that the two aren't mutually exclusive. If you love witty and intelligent romantic comedy, then this is for you. Not as wonderful as The Philadelphia Story, but great nonetheless.

Pleasant, thoughtful, and witty, "Holiday" is an offbeat and very enjoyable romantic comedy. Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn are excellent in portraying two free-spirited and likable characters, and they are joined by a fine supporting cast, especially Lew Ayres as Hepburn's brother, and Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon as an eccentric older couple. The plot is pretty simple, but there's just enough to it to show the different sides of the various characters and to allow each of them the chance to show how he or she approaches life.

Probably the best part of the movie is the long New Year's Eve party sequence. It has many entertaining touches, and brings together all of the characters and themes nicely. The atmosphere in the 'play room' is creative, and is very appropriate for the scenes there. The cast members all do a very good job of reacting consistently to their surroundings, with some characters more comfortable in formalized settings and others happier when they are less constrained.

Though it has perhaps been overshadowed by some of the more famous films of its era, "Holiday" is an entertaining classic that most fans of vintage romantic comedies should enjoy.

Katharine Hepburn brought three Phillip Barry characters to life on the screen in Without Love, The Philadelphia Story and first and foremost Holiday. Her upper class upbringing in Connecticut made her the perfect actress for his plays about the fabulously wealthy which Depression Era USA just ate up.

Holiday of necessity had to be updated. It debuted on Broadway in the boom year of 1928 so some lines to acknowledge the Great Depression had to be included. When Henry Daniell says his obscene market profits would be better with the right kind of government, he's taking dead aim at the New Deal, in particularly the newly formed Security Exchange Commission.

One guy who wants out of the money making rat race is Cary Grant as Johnny Case. He's a poor kid who's worked his way up, probably the same as the founder of the Seton fortune did back in the day. But he's decided there's more to life than just making money. Like Grandpa Vanderhof in You Can't Take It With You or Charles Foster Kane who admittedly inherited his. Henry Kolker as Edward Seton and George Coulouris as Thatcher think exactly alike.

Case has a vision of his life and wants to share it with his fiancé Doris Nolan. But he's picked the wrong sister, it's younger sister Katharine Hepburn of the Seton girls who's his soul mate.

As one who's now retired and admittedly not living in the style of the Setons I can empathize with Cary Grant. As long as you have enough to live on and you have interests to occupy yourself and you don't have a family to support, why work? In fact make room for the next generation who might have a family to support.

In that sense Holiday has a message that applies more for today than it did in 1938. Make what you can, take care of those who depend on you, but get out and enjoy life.

And enjoy Holiday.