Holiday

This is the second time a movie was made from the stage play by Phillip Barry. The first time was in 1930, and it starred Mary Astor, Anne Harding, Hedda Hopper, and Edward Everett Horton. Horton reprised his role in this one, with Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, and Lew Ayres. Cary is a happy-go-lucky guy who while on vacation in Lake Placid meets Julia, the younger of two sisters from an extremely wealthy family, and falls for her. He somehow doesn’t notice that she is rich, and when he shows up at the five-story family mausoleum mansion in Manhattan he is a bit overwhelmed. He meets the older sister, Linda, and it is instantly obvious that she is the one for him, even if you didn’t know that Grant and Hepburn were the headliners. There is a son, who aspired to be a musician but has been castrated by their old school father, a man who has guided all their lives and intends to keep on doing so. Julia is fine with it. The son has become a drunkard. Vivacious Linda just wants her sister to be happy, something the bitch really doesn’t deserve. It takes time to them all to see that. I think this is the weakest of the three comedies Cary and Kate made, well below The Philadelphia Story and Bringing Up Baby. It’s worth a look, because it is always worthwhile watching either of those screen icons at work, but I doubt I’ll see it again.