HOLIDAY (1938)
Directed by George Kukor
Columbia Pictures, 95 minutes, Not-rated
(In black & white)
★★★★
Not all “holiday” films are soaked in pine oil and draped in tinsel. The romantic comedy titled Holiday takes place between December and New Year’s Day, but it’s more about relationships and social class than Santa Claus or a diapered kid escorting Father Time to the exit door.
Holiday is an amusing film and a peek at Depression Era America. The Thirties are sometimes dubbed “the age of the common man” for imagery that valorized working stiffs.Franklin Roosevelt is never directly mentioned, but banker Edward Seton Sr. (Henry Kolker) makes known his dislike for current government policies.
Holiday is a classic Gary Grant/Katharine Hepburn screwball comedy. Grant is Johnny Case, a man from a humble Baltimore background who, through intellect and hard work obtained an Ivy League education and has done well, but not “too” well. His grand plan is to earn just enough money to quit working while he’s young. He takes his first-ever holiday to Lake Placid, meets Julia (Doris Nolan) and after a ten-day whirlwind romance, they are engaged.
Back in New York, Johnny calls upon old friends with whom he once lived, Professor Nick Potter and his wife Susan. They adore Johnny like a son, and why not? He’s witty, urbane, and acrobatic. (Watch Grant do back flips he learned when he was a vaudeville actor performing under his birthname, Archie Leach.) Johnny is gobsmacked when he calls upon Julia at her home–through the servants’ door, no less–to find that she is filthy rich and resides in digs you might associate with Newport, Rhode Island.
What unfolds is an old tale well done, a man looking for love in the wrong place. Julia isn’t enthusiastic about Johnny’s plan to retire, live modestly, eat, drink, and be merry until the money’s gone. Nor, she informs him, would such fanciful dreams play well with her stern father he is meeting for the first time. She even makes Johnny ditch his bowtie and borrow a proper necktie from her alcoholic brother Edward Jr., aka/“Ned.”
Screwball comedies often have predictable plots and this is one of them. (Their charm derives from snappy dialogue, muddled circumstances, and unexpected romance.) Ned alerts Johnny that the Seton household is a dour place and his other sister, Linda (Hepburn), affirms that. Johnny meets her in her sanctuary, the playroom, where she, Ned, and Susan spent their happiest childhood days. It is a metaphor for the overall joylessness of the rest of the four-floor mausoleum for the living.
Linda couldn’t be happier for Julia; Johnny is a proverbial breath of fresh air who might just bring light back to a home filled with marble columns, art work, and servants. Johnny’s challenge is to get Edward Sr. and Julia on board with his idea. Bet you know how that works out! Watch it unravel at a massive New Year’s Eve/engagement announcement party. Will Johnny compromise his ideals? Will he see that Julia is a snob and that he’s more simpatico with Linda? Duh! Screwball comedy.
It's hard not to review screwballs without spoilers because they are all about acting, timing, and fairy tale endings. Holiday is an actors’ clinic. Grant was a tumbling Adonis at this stage of his life, but also a wonderful actor with a plastic face and a bagful of expressions to screw onto it. But Hepburn! When she’s on screen you simply can’t look elsewhere and her timing is exquisite. Shoutouts also to veteran character actors Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon who played the Potters. Horton exudes an understated but palpable folk wisdom and Dixon lights up the screen with endearing quirks. Although his part is a bit over-written, Lew Ayres is solid as Ned, the dutiful son who wishes he was neither.
George Cukor crisply directed a remake of a Philip Barry play. This is relevant because the movie doesn’t go out much; it’s more like a filmed drawing room comedy. By now, you will have worked out that one of Cukor’s subthemes involves a battle between privilege versus a (sort of) common man. Several stuck-up Seton cousins and the Potters also flesh out those warring ideals. Count me as one who finds it refreshing to view a movie in which obscene wealth is presented as crass. But make no mistake; Holiday is also a very funny movie. As seasonal films go, it is a welcome alternative to December’s usual recycled offerings.
Rob Weir
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