Holiday (1938)

 

Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Holiday

What could be better than a film directed by George Cukor and starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn? Well, many other films, actually.

Holiday was a great disappointment. Since two of the three most important criteria for a great film were in place (good director, good actors), the weak point must be the script. Clearly, Holiday is a filmed version of a play; but there are plenty of great films that started life as a play (Arsenic and Old Lace is an example). Why the film was so poor constitutes an interesting case study. The biggest single reason is simply that the film wasn’t very funny.

The basic premise is simple. Johnny Case (Grant) meets Julia Seton (Doris Nolan), the elder daughter of a fabulously wealthy but dysfunctional family. He is presented to the father, who judges the potential son-in-law exclusively for business acumen and social eligibility. The scene where Grant is interviewed by the family father is indeed funny.

But compare this scene, or indeed any scene in Holiday, with The Awful Truth. The quality of the repartee between Grant and Irene Dunne is way beyond anything in this film.

The stiff family setting is contrasted with scenes in the play room, where the children grew up, and where the tone is much more relaxed. More relaxed, but not completely relaxed.

What is Johnny Case planning to do? The marriage is arranged and the father approves – until Case reveals he intends to stop working (albeit financed by his own savings), and to travel until he discovers – what, exactly? He says: 

Johnny Case: The world's changing out there. There are a lot of new, exciting ideas running around. Some may be right and some may be cockeyed but they're affecting all our lives. I want to know how I stand, where I fit in the picture, what it's all gonna mean to me. I can't find that out sitting behind some desk in an office, so as soon as I get enough money together, I'm going to knock off for a while.”

What exactly does that mean? The playwright had to be very careful not to suggest doing nothing (as that would give the wrong impression of this earnest young man, even though Case uses the word “holiday”), nor to suggest any kind of radicalism (what if he discovers Marxism? Or fascism?). He could discover philanthropy, which might provide some kind of justification for marrying into such wealth. 

In the end, Johnny Case runs off with Linda Seton, the younger sister, who is more bohemian than her sister, but no doubt equally rich. If Grant is seeking wisdom, as Linda points out, the family he is marrying into has enough money for ten working lives, so he can spend the rest of his life searching for wisdom at his leisure. In any case, what has Linda Seton been doing living at home all the time, with a family she finds so distasteful? Waiting for Mr Right to appear? Does she have nothing better to do? Apart from meeting Grant, her only achievement in the film is to refuse to appear at her sister's engagement party. That's not so funny. 

Other examples of funniness that fall flat are a couple who are friends of Grant, Professor Potter (Edward Everett Horton) and his wife Susan (Jean Dixon). But their wordplay is trite and Grant hardly shines with them. Nor, I am afraid, does Hepburn.

In the end, Case sets off on his journey to find new and exciting ideas, by going on a cruise liner. I don’t think he is likely to find many ideas there.