Film: 'Holiday' (1938)

Despite writing so fervently about 'Bringing Up Baby' and the Katherine Hepburn career blip, it is certainly best to think about 'Holiday' in an isolated way. Again, it's Cary Grant and Hepburn, but this time it's a different beast entirely. This time the movie is directed by George Cukor, of the 'The Philadelphia Story', and romance is the order of the day as Grant is all set to marry the wrong sister in a rich elitist family of money makers extraordinaire. The wrong sister wears terrible hats, that's how you can tell, that and the fact she's not Katherine Hepburn. To be fair, Hepburn wears a terrible hat too, so it might be hard for Grant to choose inside the narrative.

So far so normal for a romantic comedy, but again we're dealing with what is nominally a classic screwball comedy, and those are another kind of beast entirely. Screwball comedies are often about culture clashes, and it becomes clear that Grant's Johnny Chase is a man of the people but his chosen fiancée is really a woman of the old money, while her siblings are trapped by it. Will Chase be caged and trapped or will he come to his senses before the end and escape with Hepburn's Linda? The core of the movie is the banter between Grant and Hepburn, who rapidly build up a remarkable chemistry, probably honed from their previous collaboration 'Sylvia Scarlett', again a movie by Cukor.

'The Philadelphia Story' is a film metatextually about rebuilding a career, but 'Holiday' is far more straightforward. The dialogue is snappy, and the supporting cast wonderful, with the only flaw being that you don't really understand why Chase would fall for the ultimately stuck-up and conventional Julia, who willingly conspires with her father to crush her sister and brother on occasion. The cultural conflict is really between people enhanced by wealth and those crushed by it, with Chase the fly to be potentially ensnared, and Linda the prisoner slowly withering away. Yes, that might be a tone of melancholy but it's one cancelled out by the grand halfway party amongst the good free guys.

I was going to write about how 'Holiday' is ultimately just a regular romantic comedy in the end, but then something happens in the final third as Grant absents himself from the narrative completely, after discovering the grand truths about the two sisters, and the film falls upon Hepburn's shoulders. Hepburn, the only actress around who could carry a movie entirely if she wanted, and it transforms into an entirely different kind of melodrama. No it's not a comedy, it's more of a drama, but it works anyway. And then at the end, a forward roll fixes everything. How strange!

So, as 'The Philadelphia Story' looms next on our list, it's time to wrap up. We have one more film of Hepburn and Grant, and then the inaugural 'Woman of the Year', the first Hepburn and Tracy vehicle. It's time to move on, but not by forgetting all those moments and banter, and by hoping Ned escaped too post-movie. Oh, Ned, did you make it out?!

O.

Note: Wherever I write forward roll or barrel roll, I really mean a forward or backward flip. It was a long day!