HOLIDAY (1930)

While sharing director, stars, playwright & adaptor (George Cukor; Katharine Hepburn; Cary Grant; Philip Barry; Donald Ogden Stewart) with more glittering sibling THE PHILADELPHIA STORY/’40, HOLIDAY/'38 has a tenth the cultural residue.  Yet it’s the better work, certainly the one to resonate with modern ideas for modern audiences.  So, if that 1938 filming remains in PHILLY’s shadow, what chance for this 1930 iteration?  Nicely paced for an Early Talkie by director Edward H. Griffith, it  has more than just historical interest going for it.  Trimmed, rather than ‘opened-up’ for filming, the story sees young self-made Johnny Case bank just enough of his early financial success to think he can take a time-out for self-discovery before getting back on the career track.  Will rich fiancée Julia Seton come along for the adventure or bully him into joining her father’s world of Big Finance and the Social Set?  The situation complicated by sister Linda, loyal but possibly the better match for this free-thinking Prince Charming.  Staged in Pre-Depression 1928, both films versions (1930; 1938) had to make do with the new ethos of a 1930s Depression Era.  But what held down popularity then now looks remarkably advanced.  So too the iconoclastic characters Barry has us root for.  In this version, undervalued Ann Harding is nearly as fine a Linda as Hepburn would be, hopeful but used to disappointment.  As her alcoholic brother, Monroe Owsley, who originated the role on stage, repeats to good effect, but can’t touch the wistful defeat Lew Ayres brought in ‘38.  So too bland leading man Robert Ames, missing the edge & athleticism Cary Grant gave this outsider.  And while it’s fun to see Edward Everett Horton repeating as the friendly bohemian pal (his role beefed up to good effect in 1938), the wild card that makes this version unmissable is Mary Astor as the fiancée who thinks she can change her man into a proper consort.  1938's Doris Nolan isn’t in the same league.  And what a difference some real competition makes.  Watch the Hepburn first; this one cut so close to the bone some relationships a bit hard to read.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, the 1938 HOLIDAY.  But also Philip Barry’s near follow-up, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM/’32 which imagines what might have happened had the ‘wrong’ couple gone thru with the marriage before the ‘right’ person came back into their lives.  Griffith again directing Ann Harding in what amounts to the same character, while Leslie Howard & Myrna Loy take on roles very close to Johnny Case and Julia Seton.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/08/holiday-1938.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Donald Ogden Stewart’s far superior script for Cukor’s 1938 HOLIDAY a paradigm for ‘opened-up’ stage-to-film transfers.  Perhaps helped by his intimate knowledge of the play having originated Professor Potter on B’way, Edward Everett Horton’s part in both films.