Product: Holiday (1938)
Rating: 5.0
Classy Fare Shows How Hepburn Believes in Grant's Peanuts
Despite Katharine Hepburn's much-discussed twenty-five year partnership with Spencer Tracy, onscreen and off, I still contend that her most compatible partner in movies was Cary Grant. Temperamentally, physically and comically, they were a perfect match in three classics when they were in their youthful prime - the lunatic 1938 screwball farce, "Bringing Up Baby"; the strange-bedfellow 1940 wedding comedy, "The Philadelphia Story"; and in between, this smart, forward-thinking 1938 drawing room satire. Mostly overlooked and shamefully not even on DVD yet, "Holiday" is another witty observation of the old-money rich by playwright Philip Barry, the creator of "The Philadelphia Story", again adapted to the screen by Donald Ogden Stewart, this time with Sidney Buchman.The focal point is Johnny Case, an eccentric young man with a sharp business acumen that gains him a small fortune and attracts the attention of socialite Julia Seton. They fall in love and decide to marry before the story starts, and the plot is driven by the ongoing conflict between his obligation to Julia to conform and his need to take an extended holiday before going back to work. It must have been a daring concept during the Depression to think that people would choose not to work if they could, but it's one that resonates even more now. As Johnny, Grant is so charming and humorous that it seems inconceivable that his devil-may-care personality would face opposition, but it does first from Julia's obstreperous father and from Julia herself. Enter Linda, Julia's quick-witted, unconventional older sister, who is drawn to Johnny and slowly realizes he may very well be her soulmate. But Linda fights her urges because she loves her sister too much to jeopardize the relationship. At the same time, Johnny is a romantic and an idealist who recognizes similarities in Linda that he can't resist. Hepburn is perfectly cast as Linda with an arsenal of clever lines and her high-cheekboned beauty. She and Grant parry and thrust so fervently that it seems a foregone conclusion that their characters will find happiness together. But the journey there is not as predictable.Credit needs to be given to Doris Nolan with the unenviable task of playing Julia, who gradually sours on Johnny's ideas to the point of emotionally blackmailing him to take her father's offer of a banking job. Until the hard edge of her character reveals itself at the end, Julia is actually hard to hate because one senses her disappointment as the plot evolves. Similarly, Henry Kolker initially plays the father with a predictable bluster, but he also becomes rather sympathetic in his desire to look out for his daughters, even if he looks like he has given up on Linda's foibles many times in the past. The other characters are serviceable if little else - the girls' weak-willed alcoholic brother Ned portrayed almost too authentically by Lew Ayres; and the common-folk Potters played with obligatory quirkiness by Jean Dixon and 1930's comedy staple, Edward Everett Horton. Meanwhile, Binnie Barnes and Henry Daniell have hilariously acerbic roles as the intolerably blue-nosed cousins. All of this is masterfully directed by George Cukor, who manages to convey deep-seeded emotions under the guise of casual scenes like an acrobatic trick, a puppet show or even an innocent peck at New Year's. By the way, the title of my review refers to Linda's exit line to her family: "Whatever he does is all right with me. If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh, how I'll believe in those peanuts!" I love that line. This one is most definitely worth seeking out.