Holiday (1938)

I don't think it's a great movie--but I do think it's a very good one. As you so accurately note, Kate Hepburn's performance is excellent, probably one of her best, and Cary Grant's is quite good as well. In particular, the scene in which Hepburn and Grant almost resort back to childhood is brilliantly done, comparable to a similar scene in Laurel and Hardy's Their First Mistake. 

Cukor's direction is fine, if a bit slow and stodgy; as usual, Cukor is more interested in characters than visuals, and he rarely has any desire to "open up" from an original stage play. (Sarris wrote on this in The American Cinema, though he was fonder of Cukor's style than I.) Ultimately, however, Cukor seems to recognize that character is what drives the picture forward, and he deeply cares about revealing character through actors. (Unfortunately typed as a "woman's director," he did much of his best work with actresses, particularly Hepburn.)

The ending is particularly good.

I would love to see it again.

Indeed, I love the characters Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon play, as Cary's delightfully eccentric (we may now call them by the terrible word "quirky") professor friend and his wife. The reason for that is not only the characters themselves, as well as Horton and Dixon play them, but also because they're almost identical to two dear friends of mine, also a professor and his wife (who is actually also a professor). The last time I saw them, I actually told them that, and they said they'd have to watch Holiday again!

This is one gem I discovered myself. It was the early days of video stores. I had read there were many Cary Grant comedies that nad not been on TV in years. I rented it sight unseen and fell in love. It was a different Cary Grant , loose and silly , breaking up Doris Nolan. Hepburn had a chance to use her marvelous physical skills, and it was one of the best scripts she had( although she seemed to get great scripts , even in her box office poison days) .

Then there is Lew Ayres. We don't get a good picture of his appeal when all we know him for us Johnny Belinda. It's one of the best sustained drunken performances ever. It's not one - note slurring and lurching, it's moody and very funny, shifting suddenly to outrage . He delivers the key evaluation of the situation but is powerless to fix it. Finally there is wonderful Edward Everett Horton and jean Dixon. They play off each other beautifully and everything they do is quirky and unexpected. One of my great delights in the first viewing was seeing Horton pick up the Punch puppet and offer to do Romeo and Juliet, shrieking , " what Light thru yonder window breaks?" Followed by a maniacal laugh.

Resolved, then: I shall have to have my professor friend do Romeo and Juliet. Except that he teaches French, so maybe something from Moliere would be more to his liking?

I suppose it's not a terrible word in and of itself ("peculiar and unexpected," my online dictionary has it, though I think that's a bit broad), but it is so mis- and over-used that I am usually loath to use it.

"He paints naked blue women on the wall!" "No, he's just quirky!" 

But that ain't quirkiness, let me tell ya.

That's funny . I always think Holiday and Philadelphia Story are bookends to Barry's work. They are essentially concerned with similar things, the lifelessness , shallowness and toxic quality of life among the very rich.


Tracy Lord and Julia Seton are very similar ,although Tracy has the desire to break out, very well hidden, and only indulged with the help of alcohol. Linda Seaton's counterpart in Philadelphia Story is CKDexter Haven. Both children of wealth, both trying to find an authentic life and be something ,do something. Dexter, as a man, has more freedom to experiment. Linda is not going to be allowed to design sailboats, go in for art. She will be dragged back home or sent abroad. Neither Linda nor Dexter quite knew how to establish the kind of authentic relationship they wanted , although Linda got more help from Johnny that Dexter got from Tracy.

Both films had intellectual criticism and love from a working man. In PS both came from Jimmy Stewart. In Holiday the intellectual analysis came from drunken Ned and from the Potters, both pretty clear sighted about Linda. The working man with fresh ideas about love was , of course Cary Grant as Johnny, the fresh free man of business who wanted to understand his life.

Finally both films put the father as the moral center. In PS, the father was harshly critical but essentially supportive. In Holiday the father's demands were unreasonable and uncaring . In both films the mother tried to mediate the father's standards with warmth and acceptance. In both films , earning the father's approval was a primary concern for the women.