I also share a love for this film. I think Grant is excellent in this in representing a ‘free spirit’ as you suggest. He sees through everyone’s hypocrisy and wins the heart of Kate’s character in the film. These two were a match made in cinematic heaven. Both were great in screwball comedies separately and were wonderful when paired together. We have them also in Bringing Up Baby from the same year and the later Philadelphia Story. Until Spencer came along – and broke them ‘up’ – they were the perfect on-screen comic couple – only equalled, perhaps, by Loy and Powell. Grant was ideal in the role. He played comic roles in many a film during this time: The Awful Truth, In Name Only, His Girl Friday, My Favorite Wife, and Arsenic and Old Lace. In each, he was perfect. Yet, Hepburn turned out to be the ideal foil and female lead for his charm and wit. Never more so than in this film – which always serves as a relief from stuffiness – and still as refreshing and relevant today. Cukor, Hepburn, and Grant – you can’t ever go wrong with that combination! I am glad there is another enthusiast of this film..
Interesting comments on the origins of Bryn Mawr, Kenji – which I didn’t know. That place gave Hepburn an accent that was unmistakable – with an attitude to match.
Grant’s character has a great line in the film, which is now a bit ironic: “When I find myself in a position like this, I ask myself what would General Motors do? And then I do the opposite!”
Thank you for bringing that memory up again this morning. I watched Holiday (german titel: Die Schwester der Braut, eg. Sister of the Bride) only one time, from a videotaped tv-screening, in my parents basement some 25 years ago. And it is still one of my most lively cinematic memories/experiences. Grant as a kind of anti-capitalist free spirit seems to be pre-‘68, but with a smoking. Hepburns disgust for her family’s obsession with money comes out sharp, worshipping friendship and affection instead of, how one would call it today, “networking”. I also remember Grant’s character having some boheme friends, an elderly couple, who were adorably smart and funny.
I really wonder why this film never made it to the pantheon of screwball. In fact, it is nearly forgotten today, isn’t it?
Thanks for the enthusiastic replies. I was tempted to stop or rewind to note down a few other lines from the film Bob, but have sent the rental back. Perhaps there may be some on the net somewhere? Your quote is brilliant, a perfect summary for the film and what i was driving at (driving at, get it, if there are any Hollywood moguls on the site i’m available for scripting the next great comedy). Yes, the Bohemian couple the Potters i think they’re called, are great, i’m terrible with memory of supporting actors and actresses but the man was Edward Everett Horton, who pops up with Fred Astaire and in quite a few notable films, mainly comedies of the time- Trouble in Paradise, Top Hat and The Devil is a Woman probably the most famous he was in-, can be an acquired taste but here they’re a great couple.
this film, which is brilliant to say the least, contains the sad-eyed yet always jovial, lew ayres giving the greatest soliloquy of all time about the pleasures and perils of getting drunk. a truly wonderful speech, it lends the film an air of melancholy, as if saying that not all free spirits are free enough to resist capitalist assimilation.
i miss roles like lew ayres one here, character actors who never attempted to upstage the stars, yet a lot of times ended up stealing the show…like the weenie king in preston sturgess’s equally incredible palm beach story.
There’s a great scene in “Igby Goes Down” where the clincally depressed father shows “Holiday” to his kids. It’s the only time in the film he smiles. He’s showing it to them as a way of explaining who they are.
Hepburn is great in HOLIDAY. It is one of my favorite performances of hers. I think it is a better film than THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. It is not as engineered. Jean Dixon plays Susan Potter. She was the maid in MY MAN GODFREY as well.
I think Hepburn is cast perfectly here—the privileged girl with the common touch and an appreciation of real values.
I think that Cary Grant was a better leading man for her than Spencer Tracy. A word should also be said for Lew Ayres performance as Linda’s brother, Ned.
One of the greatest Cukor, without a doubt.
Cough. I just want to point out that I meant “tuxedo” when I wrote “smoking” a few posts up. Don’t know why we Germans use an english looking word that actually means something completely different. So no, I was not talking about Cary Grant smoking cigarettes but was referring to his distinguished clothes. Stupid me.
Don’t worry, Thorsten Funke. By the way, I tell you what, also in Italy we call it smoking.
Well, how can a German be stupid for the word smoking instead of tuxedo? It’s the English-speaking world who only manage that one language who should be wondering about their limitations. My German is barely any more than Ich habe alles vergessen and that’s probably wrong
@Kenji no no, you got that phrase perfectly right ;.)
@Dan I really never thought about this but the matter gives a whole new meaning to all the “no smoking”-signs.
Anyway, outstanding film, gotta see it again. Just checked my local cinephile videostore and they got it.
I’ve never seen this one. I’ll have to check it out. I thought Hepburn and Grant were great in Bringing Up Baby and The Philadephia Story.
So many beautiful films from that era, and this is a solid one…. I never rated it as highly as Bringing Up Baby, but I might have to revisit it now.
Other favs… Twentieth Century, His Girl Friday and The Lady Eve.
and Kenji nice points on how a banker is still a banker…. rhymes with wanker!
Bron Y Aur?!! That’s The Way……..
>I really never thought about this but the matter gives a whole new meaning to all the “no smoking”-signs.
Ahah, you’re right.
Musycks, i was thinking the other day football crowds should now be chanting “the referee’s a b*nker”. Bron yr aur= Golden Breast. A good way to follow. Beats Golden balls Beckham. Cue a great fantasy adventure, Jason and the Argonauts in quest for the golden breast
Having praised Hepburn, perhaps i should add that Cary Grant deserves more serious credit for his acting career, not just all the wonderful films, but his ease with comedy and tension alike. There’s a hint of danger and rich darkness to his light, he doesn’t fall into the method intensity and doesn’t need to. So i prefer him to De Niro and Pacino and almost everyone, apart from Keaton and Astaire the angels.
Nowadays actors master accents much better. In I Was a Male War Bride, another of those Hawks’ gender role reversals, Grant is the least convincing Frenchman (never mind woman) i’ve seen, it’s really “something quite atrocious”. Spencer Tracy was another, get him in Captains Courageous, oooh these things have me grimacing as if cat’s claws were being scraped up a blackboard.
Holiday is one of the best movies with Kate, but my favourite one is Bringing up Baby.
Which is your favourite scene in Holiday?
Mine begins when Hepburn says “I could never decide whether I wanted to be Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale or John L. Lewis”
http://bit.ly/4dTmDG
from minute 0:50
Ha, never mind Florence Nightingale, she would have been a better Betsi Cadwaladr (especially as she was taken with Wales); look Betsi up, she was a feisty one, not one to put up with any la-di-da orders or domineering from Florence Nightingale, and an adventurer, deserves a film biography!
I just saw Holiday this evening, fell madly in love with it, and was disappointed to find it didn’t have its own page on which I could enthuse. Nice surprise, though, to find this little thread.
The more I see, the more I’m convinced: Grant is one of the greatest screen actors, a notion I would’ve scoffed at when I first encountered him. Hepburn is perfect, as usual, and Lew Ayres is marvelous as the boozed and bored brother Ned.
The General Motors quote is wonderful, I rewound to make sure I’d heard it correctly. The contrast can really be shocking sometimes between the amount “subversive” content you’ll find in a major comedy today and films like Holiday (Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows is another film whose sheer guts content-wise took me aback). This sort of life perspective would never fly in today’s culture. I guess the money-grubbing “sickness”, as Hepburn’s Linda calls it, is just that widespread and that deeply rooted these days…
Ah, and in response to Mirja Kraemer’s question:
Favorite scene would have to be when Julia’s cousin enters the music room. Everyone deflates slightly, and raises their hands in the air. Totally absurd and absolutely hilarious.
Holiday is fantastic, I much prefer it to the same writer director troika’s The Philadelphia Story.
I get the feeling that Hepburn is briniging some of her feelings re her real brother’s suicide, emotionally it packs a punch.
I’ve been reading Charlotte Chandler’s book The Real Kate, A Personal Biography of Katharine Hepburn. I find her fascinating. I must get round to sharing a few bits from the book, which is based mainly on recorded conversations with her and people who knew and worked with her. Trying to make sense at times of the various perspectives (though a lot gel well)- the subjectivity of Bob Hope’s “Katharine Hepburn had zilch sense of humor” (she didn’t like his jokes) v Anthony Hopkins’ “she had a wonderful sense of humour”, the importance of her teenage older brother’s death by suicide or accident, her beloved parents instilling confidence and a fearless attitude, her determination to prove herself in a career her doctor father didn’t approve of, her athleticism, her relationships with Douglas Fairbanks jnr, Howard Hughes (she too loved flying), Spencer Tracy of course, her friendship with George Cukor, enjoyment of filming Summertime in Venice with and respect for David Lean (his favourite among his own films), the experience of The African Queen etc…
There’s an excellent list here with clips, by jsaez, A Woman Rebels: Katharine Hepburn’s Greatest Performances
Kenji
A long time since i saw it and my memories were vague but this morning i saw George Cukor’s Holiday. Cary Grant in best light-hearted slightly eccentric screwball mode, is in love with a young woman he met 10 days ago, doesn’t know much about her, but declares this is the real thing and wedding bells will soon be ringing. He’s surprised to discover on entering her home for the first time from what turns out to be the back or tradesman’s entrance that she lives in an enormous mansion with lift and servants. It will be the proper thing to do to get her father’s approval. Turns out daddy is a very practical minded businessman/patrician for whom family background and the right connections are all important, and even the honeymoon must be a useful business connections trip. Cary’s a free spirited guy who’s worked his way up into a decent enough job from a tough upbringing, but certainly not from one of the right sort of families. When he meets his beloved’s sis Hepburn, gnoshes her apple, bleats like a goat and does a cartwheel or two, they find they are kindred spirits, she having little time for formalities and the patriarchal and family acquaintances’ snobby obsession with wealth and status. When he declares to fiancée and future father-in-law that he intends not to take up the offer of a top post, but to instead spend time off on vacation to find himself and the true meaning of life and work, then cue trouble and… possibilities (for who could forget Michael Caine’s advice that every problem is an opportunity?).
Now Katharine Hepburn is a vivacious wonder in this film. I’d always had some reservations, was it the tomboy toughness, the rather angular features, the feistiness, the boldness, the spinsterish late career rasping and Lion in Winter fire in the belly, the haughty acting others off the set, the voice, the accent (Bryn Mawr i understand though surely a Welsh-named place would be a plus?)… well, no longer, for dear Kate, you who lost your beloved brother in your athletic youth, you who got suspended from Bryn Mawr for smoking, breaking curfew and swimming nude apparently- most unladylike, you who hailed from Connecticut where a dear internet friend comes from too; you have have won me over, and this could be the beginning of a beautiful watsit.
And moreover what a great antidote this film is to the money-grabbers, the b*$kers who’ve screwed up the world economy, the stock market traders counting their dough and the snobs in high places. I like it very much, this free spirit for adventure, and after a delightful evening walk with Bryn and Kiki (rippling grasses and summer evening light a la Tarkovsky’s Mirror) i just wanted to say so.
Take the thread wherever…Hepburn, Grant, Cukor, Sylvia Scarlett, Bringing up Baby, screwball, credit crunch, other films that cock a snook at b*nkers (now surely a swear word)…or will be a rebuke to or comfort in the credit crunch..
p.s Bryn Mawr means Big Hill (Bryn is the hill not the big, my dog Bryn is a terrier), and the founder was from Dolgellau or roundabouts