Holiday.
Directed by George Cukor. 1938.
Starring Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayers, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Kolker and Jean Dixon. Black and white. 95 mins.
This shouldn't take long: it's Grant and Hepburn, in a romantic comedy, based on a play by the writer of The Philadelphia Story, Philip Barry, and overseen by the man who'd direct Philadelphia Story three years after this, George Cukor. What else would you realistically need to know? Of course, it's great, that goes without saying. Within a few minutes of the film starting Grant does a backflip and you just know that this going to turn out great.
It opens with Grant returning to New York and announcing to his two best friends that he is to be married to a girl, Julie, he just met on holiday and knows little about. They are worried she might be after him for his money. When he visits her home the film pulls a couple of surprises. The first, is that his intended is considerably richer than he is, a member of one of America's richest families. The second, is that she isn't Katherine Hepburn.
Holiday explores what appears to be Barry's favourite subject: how the ultra-wealthy can be perfected by exposure to working people. Hepburn is cast as the sister and as soon as she sees the cocksure Grant striding around the marble pillars she realises that he is a force that can bring a bit of life and freedom into their mausoleum of a home. But can Grant retain his carefree independence or will stricture of high society tame him?
This battle is mirrored by the story. It starts out as lots of freewheeling fun but gradually becomes surprisingly poignant. Grant is the life of the party, but Hepburn is its heart.
Extras.
Holiday (1930), a previous adaptation of Philip Barry’s play, directed by Edward H. Griffith
Directed by George Cukor. 1938.
Starring Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayers, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Kolker and Jean Dixon. Black and white. 95 mins.
This shouldn't take long: it's Grant and Hepburn, in a romantic comedy, based on a play by the writer of The Philadelphia Story, Philip Barry, and overseen by the man who'd direct Philadelphia Story three years after this, George Cukor. What else would you realistically need to know? Of course, it's great, that goes without saying. Within a few minutes of the film starting Grant does a backflip and you just know that this going to turn out great.
It opens with Grant returning to New York and announcing to his two best friends that he is to be married to a girl, Julie, he just met on holiday and knows little about. They are worried she might be after him for his money. When he visits her home the film pulls a couple of surprises. The first, is that his intended is considerably richer than he is, a member of one of America's richest families. The second, is that she isn't Katherine Hepburn.
Holiday explores what appears to be Barry's favourite subject: how the ultra-wealthy can be perfected by exposure to working people. Hepburn is cast as the sister and as soon as she sees the cocksure Grant striding around the marble pillars she realises that he is a force that can bring a bit of life and freedom into their mausoleum of a home. But can Grant retain his carefree independence or will stricture of high society tame him?
This battle is mirrored by the story. It starts out as lots of freewheeling fun but gradually becomes surprisingly poignant. Grant is the life of the party, but Hepburn is its heart.
Extras.
Holiday (1930), a previous adaptation of Philip Barry’s play, directed by Edward H. Griffith
- New conversation between filmmaker and distributor Michael Schlesinger and film critic Michael Sragow
- Audio excerpts from an American Film Institute oral history with director George Cukor, recorded in 1970 and ’71
- Costume gallery
- PLUS: An essay by critic Dana Stevens
