God, these two are just great together and you get to see that as clearly as day itself in the 1938 comedy Holiday. Here, Cary Grant plays Johnny Case, a free-wheeling adventurous man who is planning to propose to his girlfriend Julia Seton (Doris Nolan). While going over to Julia's lavish home to ask for the permission of her father, Edward (Henry Kolker), Johnny meets Katharine Hepburn's character Julia's sister, Linda Seton. Whereas Julia and Edward are more than content with the life of an aloof socialite, Linda feels constrained by this lifestyle, she wants a more venturesome life, the kind that Johnny has. Hmm, I wonder if that signals the possibility of those two being potential lovers...
Holiday is a movie featuring both cast & crew members alike in their element, they've got the experience with doing crowd-pleasing romantic-comedies and know how to use that experience to make something special. I'm not just talking about Grant and Hepburn, director George Cukor (who would go on to helm The Philadelphia Story) certainly knows his way around this type of material, ditto writers Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman. Thankfully, nobody's sleep-walking through familiar terrain here, on the contrary, everyone's putting in a commendable amount effort here that reminds one why the likes of George Cukor are thought of as titans of this subgenre of American cinema.
Put simply, all of that efforts is spent on just making sure Holiday is fun to watch. The script is full of fun bits of dialogue and gives the characters memorable bits of personality, most notably Johnny Case's somersaulting abilities. Meanwhile, Cukor's skilled direction does a great job of visually realizing the dialogue-heavy proceedings in a way that many filmmakers today could take a cue from. There was a great interview recently where Tim Blake Nelson commented on how many modern movies rely excessively on close-ups in order to accommodate people watching movies on smaller phone and tablet screens. There's nothing wrong with more tightly filmed shots, but wider images are also vital visual components for any movie and the impressive way Cukor films numerous important conversations in wider shots that allow the viewer how the members of this Seton family interact with one another shows how much value there is in this method of filming.
As for the two lead actors, well, Grant and Hepburn always seem to bring out the best in one another and that remains true here. For his part, Cary Grant makes for a wonderful lead, he brings endearing charm to his characters' desires for not being tied down by unfulfilling jobs and lots of possessions. As for leading lady Katharine Hepburn, she manages to make her characters conflicted nature (does she go with what her family wants or does she go with what she wants?) feel palpable. Oh, and Hepburn is also frequently hysterical throughout this movie, a moment where she compares herself to a stuffed animal giraffe had me laughing hysterically.
In terms of performances, props must also go to Lew Ayres as Linda's brother Ned. What seems like a throwaway role at first gradually takes on a surprisingly effective note of tragedy centered on how Ned wants Linda to have the kind of self-fulfilling life he never got to have and much of its unexpected poignancy comes from Lew Ayres and his acting. Speaking of Linda and her siblings, I wish Julia didn't quite have such an abrupt heel-turn into outright villainy in her final scene of the movie, but such a move is really the biggest grievance I have with Holiday. This is the kind of excellently realized feel-good entertainment that reminds me why I'm ever so fond of these Grant/Hepburn vehicles!
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