Waste of time

So much average

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

HOLIDAY (Columbia, 1938), directed by George Cukor, from the 1928 stage play by Philip Barry, is an updated comedy with serious overtones that marked the third screen collaboration of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. While there are those who'd rather ignore their initial pairing of SYLVIA SCARLETT (RKO, 1935), in favor of the fast-paced/ madcap comedy of BRINGING UP BABY (1938), HOLIDAY, which immediately followed, offers both sophistication and originality, in spite the fact that the story had been filmed eight years earlier (Pathe, 1930)starring Ann Harding (Linda), Mary Astor (Julia), Robert Ames (John) and Monroe Owsley (Ned). The advantage both films have is the delightful presence of character actor Edward Everett Horton playing Nick Potter in both versions. For this edition, HOLIDAY, both Hepburn and Grant are at their finest.Set in New York City during both the Christmas and New Year's holidays, the narrative opens with 30-year-old Johnny Case (Cary Grant), returning from his skiing vacation in Lake Placid by taxi. He first stops over the apartment of his very best friends, Nick (Edward Everett Horton), a college professor, and his wife, Susan (Jean Dixon), with the news that he's met and now engaged to a girl he's met during his holiday, and will be married in ten days. This is followed by his visit to the home of his fiancé, Julia Seton (Doris Nolan) where he's to meet and acquaint himself with her family. To his surprise, Johnny finds Susan a debutante living in a Park Avenue mansion with stairways and elevators big enough to pass as a museum. During the course of the story, Johnny is introduced to Julia's brother, Ned (Lew Ayres), an unhappy individual who drowns his sorrows with alcoholic drinks; her sister, Linda (Katharine Hepburn), a carefree heiress who takes an immediate like towards the equally carefree Johnny; and her father, Edward Seton (Henry Kolker), a serious-minded banker whose business comes ahead if his family. He is both stunned and appalled after being told by Susan during his attendance in church of her engagement, and now intends to learn more about this young man. Linda, a "black sheep" of the family with sentimental memories of her late mother, yearns the love and affection from her father. She finds comfort in the family playroom on the fourth floor that was formerly her mother's place for escape. After the New Year's Eve engagement party for which Linda chooses not to attend, the Seton family is appalled to learn that Johnny, having worked since he was ten, has his own philosophy to enjoy life first by retiring young and going back to work after comprehending the reason for working in the first place. While Linda sides with his right to be free and happy while still young to enjoy life, both Julia and her father have other means of persuading Johnny to think as they do. Also appearing in the cast are Henry Daniell (Seton Cram, Julia's cousin); Binnie Barnes (Laura Cram, Seton's wife) Bess Flowers, Matt McHugh and Neil Fitzgerald, among others. The direction of George Cukor translates Donald Ogden Stewart's screenplay into a well produced production. Not a laugh-out-loud comedy, but a pleasant 93 minutes. Of those in the Seton family, Lew Ayres, shortly before achieving success in the "Doctor Kildare" film series (1938-1942) for MGM, wins both sympathy and honors for his realistic approach of a unhappy single man unable to fulfill his life's ambition as both drummer and composer of the "Seton Concert," now tied down to his strict father's idea of family tradition in the business world. Hepburn's Linda, the stronger of the siblings, a misunderstood member of the family, would rather lose her father's love than her the self-respect lost to her brother, Ned. Doris Nolan, who at times resembles Joan Fontaine through her profile and Fontaine hairstyle of the day, best described as "sweet and intelligent" who, in actuality, to be more like her father than her free-spirited sister. Amusing highlights include Grant's backward flip-flops to express happiness, Horton and Dixon's mini puppet show, and Hepburn's expertise in handling her character to resemble that of her personal self. She and Grant make a grand team, and it shows how much they commend each other with their scenes. Hepburn and Grant would team one more time in another screen adaptation of Philip Barry's based play to THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (MGM, 1940), shortly before Kate would win immortality with her much better known screen partner of Spencer Tracy in nine feature films during the course of 25 years.Due to the fact that HOLIDAY was formerly broadcast on commercial television often during the Christmas season, for some reason it's seldom listed as a "holiday" movie, hence the title. Aside from early distribution onto video cassette in the 1980s, and decades later on DVD, cable television broadcasts have varied, but commonly found on Turner Classic Movies where it been airing since its humble beginnings dating back to 1994. (****)

Johnny Case (Cary Grant) is on cloud nine as he tells his friends the Potters that he's marrying Julia Seton (Doris Nolan). Only he doesn't know that she's the daughter in a wealthy family. She wants him incorporated into her money-making family. Her older black sheep sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn) loves his carefree attitude. Her loving mother passed away and her father is a hard man. Her brother Ned was a musician but her father puts him to work in a life that he hates.Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn have superior charisma and terrific chemistry together. That's all the film needs and all that any viewer needs to know. The characters are fast-talking fun with some slapstick thrown in. They learn to follow their dreams and their hearts rather than follow their family obligations. Grant is always a great every man and it's important that he's not a slacker. He is the new self-made man not encumbered by money while Hepburn is the liberated woman.

Cary Grant plays Johnny Case, a fool in love, engaged to marry a girl Julia Seton who he really knows nothing about and whom he met at a winter resort. That she lives in a Manhattan mansion, complete with elevator, a private residence about the size of Buckingham Palace, well--- it all leaves him dumbfounded when he shows up at her door. Confused, taking it all in, Johnny does back flips on its grand polished floors. He meets up with his fiancée's older sister Linda, played by Katharine Hepburn, who immediately sniffs out a kindred spirit. She recognizes his discomposure: "You didn't realize what you were getting into," she tells him. "A world of stuffed shirts and mink-lined ties." Yes, Linda is the self-admitted black sheep of the family, a type completely opposite from that of Julia, the conventional, snobbish socialite adequately played by Doris Nolan. And into this family mix is added the Lew Ayres character, brother Ned who wanders around with his hand permanently attached to a whiskey glass that is subjected to constant refills. Ned is the idle, miserable son of the banker class, a sensitive soul frustrated in his ambition to pursue a career in music, a profession vetoed by his financier father. So Ned has taken the path of least resistance by becoming a professional alcoholic. Prospective groom Johnny has always been an independent guy, coming from a hardscrabble background, working since the age of ten, and now at the age of thirty has accumulated enough money to live the kind of life he feels is right and honorable for himself. He's so enamored with his dream of life, which demands a "holiday" for self-exploration, he doesn't realize that he's in love with the wrong sister. Julia wants "the golden throne." And what he wants is a life of somersaults and the acrobatic freedom of an existence not reigned in by convention. He's got some buddies rooting for him throughout, husband and wife academics who worry and fuss, and encourage him, surrogate parents devoted to his welfare. Wonderful character actors, Edward Everett Horton as Professor Potter and Jean Dixon as Mrs. Potter serve as delightful counterparts to the stuffy, moneyed world of the Seton family. Throughout Cary Grant seems to be having fun with this role, one where he can demonstrate his flair for physical comedy, a skill he retained from his early stage career pre-film. Hepburn is superb at playing a type of woman with which she has an intimate acquaintance, one very similar to whom she was in real life, a member of East Cost society with all the accompanying mannerisms and accent. The director George Cukor again shows his talent and facility in directing such an ensemble of talented actors. Who finds true love and is given the opportunity to actualize their true path in life? Watch and enjoy the fun of discovery along with the characters.

Johnny Case (Cary Grant) falls in love with Julia Seton (Doris Nolan) while on holiday. Despite knowing little about each other, they become engaged. The free-spirited Johnny finds he doesn't have much in common with Julia's class-obsessed family, except for her 'black sheep' sister Linda (Katharine Hepburn). Gradually Linda begins to fall for Johnny as he struggles with the contrast between what he wants out of life and what Julia wants.This is a nice George Cukor romantic comedy but I'm not as in love with it as others. Grant and Hepburn are great. This is one of Hepburn's more likable roles. But there's something about the plot that leaves me a little cold on the romance front. Basically at the end of the picture I'm left with the feeling that Grant's character is a little quick to fall in love and any potential he might have for a successful relationship with Hepburn or anybody else is doubtful. I guess that's the cynic in me coming out but the film really didn't try to appeal to the romantic. Still, it's a good film with a great director, two amazing stars, and a fine supporting cast.