Themes: Otherwise Engaged, Wedding Bells, Class Differences
Main Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton
Release Year: 1938
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
Plot
Both film versions of Phillip Barry's stage comedy Holiday have their merits, but the 1938 version has the added advantage of supercharged star power. Katharine Hepburn and Doris Nolan play Linda and Julia Seton, two daughters of a very well-to-do family. Linda feels a bit lost in the shuffle as sister Julia prepares to marry self-made financier Cary Grant. Hepburn has always rebelled against her privileged trappings, and finds a kindred spirit in the unorthodox, iconoclastic Grant. On the verge of compromising his down-to-earth values with his marriage to the wealth-obsessed Nolan, Grant chooses instead to plight his troth with soul-mate Hepburn, celebrating his "liberation" by doing several cartwheels. Donald Ogden Stewart is careful to bring the pre-Depression frivolities of the Barry play up-to-date, first by changing the character of Grant's best friend (played in both films by Edward Everett Horton) from a lazy socialite to a dedicated professor, and by including several lines indicating how out of touch the privileged classes are--and choose to remain--with 1930s realities. The only element in which the remake does not improve on the original is in the casting of Hepburn's alcoholic younger brother; charming though Lew Ayres is in the 1938 film, he is still outclassed by Monroe Owsley in Holiday (1930). Katharine Hepburn managed to temporarily defray her "box office poison" onus when Holiday proved to be a success; alas, her next film, Bringing Up Baby (which reteamed her with Grant), was a financial bust, compelling her to return to Broadway--where she made a spectacular comeback in another Philip Barry play, The Philadelphia Story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
George Cukor was arguably the best and most consistent director of sophisticated romantic comedies in the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s. Literate, thoughtful, and refined, his efforts in the genre were blueprints for all who followed, and Holiday was no exception. Next to The Philadelphia Story, the film is perhaps his most-loved comedy. An enjoyable screen version of the same Philip Barry play had been produced just eight years earlier, starring Mary Astor and Robert Ames, but Cukor improved on it in just about every way. This is the second of three times that Cukor worked with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn was Cukor's favorite star, and he was instrumental in her success as an actress ever since her first leading role, in the director's 1932 film Bill of Divorcement. ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide
Binnie Barnes - Laura Cram; Henry Kolker - Edward Seton; Jean Dixon - Susan Potter; Henry Daniell - Seton Cram; Harry Allen; Marion Ballou - Grandmother; Aileen Carlyle - Farm Girl; Edward Cooper - Scotchman; Luke Cosgrave - Grandfather; Ruth Donnelly; Neil Fitzgerald - Edgar; Bess Flowers - Dorothy's Party Guest; Mitchell Harris - Jennings; George Hickman - Telegraph Boy; Howard Hickman - Man in Church; Matt McHugh - Taxi Driver; Margaret McWade - Farmer's Wife; George Pauncefort - Edgar; Hilda Plowright - Woman in Church; Charles Richman - Thayer; Frank Shannon - Farmer; Charles Trowbridge - Banker; Lillian West - Mrs. Thayer; Maurice Brierre - Steward; Maude Hume - Maid
Credit
Lionel Banks - Art Director, Stephen Goosson - Art Director, Robert Kalloch - Costume Designer, George Cukor - Director, Al Clark - Editor, Otto Meyer - Editor, Morris W. Stoloff - Composer (Music Score), Sidney B. Cutner - Composer (Music Score), Morris W. Stoloff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Franz Planer - Cinematographer, Everett J. Riskin - Producer, Babs Johnstone - Set Designer, Sidney Buchman - Screenwriter, Donald Ogden Stewart - Screenwriter, Philip Barry - Play Author
Representative Albums: "Blue Holiday," "Johnny Holiday Sings," "'Holiday' for Lovers"
Biography
Johnny Holiday started out to be a jazz singer in the late 1940s, following years of classical voice training as a boy. Unfortunately, for quite a few years, he didn't get much past plugging songs and working on the periphery of the recording industry, interspersed with the occasional performance, and had an abortive start on a recording career at Capitol Records. His break, such as it was, came at Pacific Jazz Records, where he caught the ear of producer/songwriter Dick Bock and ended up recording a 10" LP in 1954. Although the latter didn't break any sales records, it allowed Holiday to survive in the business long enough to do a second, pop-style LP for the Kapp label. His recording career faltered in the second half of the 1950s, despite a growing reputation and following for the singer, who was getting much steadier work. By the end of the decade, he was working especially successfully in Europe, but his American career seemed stalled, and in 1960 he decided to play the safe bet of taking his musical expertise to the recording and television industries -- he went to work for an animation studio, editing the music and sound (and doing some voices) for Batman creator Bob Kane's Batman parody, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. The mid-'60s were even less inviting for singers like Holiday, amid the British Invasion, the folk-rock boom, and the psychedelic era that followed, Holiday stayed on the sidelines as a recording artist, keeping his hand in with the occasional performance but otherwise inactive. Finally, at the end of the 1990s, with help and encouragement from producer Terry Gibbs, Holiday took another shot at recording: In the spring of 2004, a half-century after his Pacific Jazz album release, he issued his first CD. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Self made man Johnny Case (Grant) is about to marry Julia Seton (Doris Nolan), but then learns that she is rich. He proceeds to meet her sister Linda (Hepburn), father (Henry Kolker), and brother Ned (Lew Ayres) who drinks to forget his life as a slave to earning money. Johnny discusses his possibilities with his more humble friends, Professor (Edward Everett Horton) and Mrs. Potter (Jean Dixon), as he struggles to decide whether to quit work to finally have some fun and whether he should marry the "great woman behind every successful man" Julia, or be with his more free spirited "soul-mate" Linda.
Cast
Cary Grant as Johnny Case
Katharine Hepburn as Linda Seton
Doris Nolan as Julia Seton
Lew Ayres as Ned Seton
Henry Kolker as Edward Seton
Edward Everett Horton as Professor Nick Potter
Jean Dixon as Susan Potter
Production
In 1936, Columbia Pictures purchased a group of scripts, including the script for Holiday, from RKO for $80,000. Although the film was originally intended to reunite The Awful Truth co-stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, George Cukor decided to cast Hepburn instead.[4]
Reception
Although the film was not a financial success, it was well-received by critics. Hepburn biographers have speculated that Johnny Case's plans to give up working did not appeal to Great Depression audiences who were struggling to find jobs.[5][6]
