Uncle Cliffy Recommends
Holiday (1938), featuring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. A comedy--not a screwball comedy, as would sorta be expected given the juxtaposition of its stars, though the dialogue crackles with the expected wit delivered by these actors. Grant plays a level-headed kind of guy, a middle-class working stiff who becomes engaged to Hepburn's sister. As such, he is about to marry into one of America's First Families. There is the usual opposition from Papa, but that is easily routed.
Hepburn plays the Older Sister, more appropriately, the Older Sister in the Attic. She is the free-thinker, the questioner, the nonconformist. She doesn't fit the mold of the Upper Crust, and, to avoid "scenes," the family placates her. You can hear the condescension in almost every word her father and her sister say to her. Or they ignore her. For instance, Papa dismisses his family in order to talk privately to Grant, and obtains their permission for the tête-à-tête. But, when the moment comes, Hepburn doesn't leave, settling back in a comfy chair with her knitting. It is a funny moment. But the scene implies that her prescence is tolerated only because Papa finds her a little off and plainly doesn't want her to offend her and end up in a squabble -- and that such confrontations have clearly happened before. A conversation later between the sisters confirms that Hepburn has been patronized and tolerated all her life.
Appopriately, Hepburn has her own space in the family manse, an old nursery the family calls The Play Room. It is here that Hepburn lives, away from the family, in what we would call "normalcy," because it is not stuffy or overlarge or empty or cold or filled with hard, impersonal statuary. The Play Room has a trapeze (child-sized) and a Punch-and-Judy stage and loveseats and musical instruments. Okay, not exactly "normalcy," but we are meant to like and appreciate the world of The Play Room more than the world of the Stuffy Family. It is here that Grant is drawn, both physically and psychologically. As we learn, he is better suited to Hepburn than her sister. He grows to realize that the sister is firmly entrenched in Papa's world, while he (Grant) is longing for arm-stretching freedom and lack of encumberances, mostly of the Bad Business World variety. Thus, Holiday becomes a morality play about the shackles of capitalism vs. the freedom of open-ended inquiry and nonconformity to the slavery that comes with wealth.
And hilarity ensues.
My favorite character is Hepburn's brother Ned. Because he is a boy, instead of having his own Play Room to live in, Ned has been forced into the World of Business -- and he loathes it. His loathing is of the passive-aggressive, snarky-bitter kind. His barbs, however, are tolerated, mostly because he is a boy and because nobody takes his bitter asides seriously -- how can they be, when this golden boy, this scion of the Upper Echelons, is obviously successful and reaping the rewards of his wealth? But Neddie detests his life. He is the only one of the family who can see things from Hepburn's point-of-view, and he wishes he could indulge in her world of The Play Room. Instead, he drinks. Which provides another cover for his barbs. Neddie stays soused throughout the entire movie -- his first scene is in church (!) where he is plainly hungover and has sustained some sort of drinking-related injury as evidenced by the white bandage on his forehead. I love Neddie. If the play upon which the movie was based was written today, Neddie would be the gay one. In 1930s America, he must hide his obvious gayness (he is conspicuously unmarried) behind alcohol. The saddest moment in the movie is at the end when Hepburn makes her escape and has to leave Neddie behind, with only a promise to return at a later date and free him. Indeed, I wept at this sad clown's life.
Oh, there is comic relief from two of Grant's chums, a free-thinking professor and his wife. The seriousness doesn't have to be taken that deeply. Watch this for Hepburn (especially) and Grant and Neddie (played by Lew Ayres) and the characteristic 1930s wit.
Hepburn plays the Older Sister, more appropriately, the Older Sister in the Attic. She is the free-thinker, the questioner, the nonconformist. She doesn't fit the mold of the Upper Crust, and, to avoid "scenes," the family placates her. You can hear the condescension in almost every word her father and her sister say to her. Or they ignore her. For instance, Papa dismisses his family in order to talk privately to Grant, and obtains their permission for the tête-à-tête. But, when the moment comes, Hepburn doesn't leave, settling back in a comfy chair with her knitting. It is a funny moment. But the scene implies that her prescence is tolerated only because Papa finds her a little off and plainly doesn't want her to offend her and end up in a squabble -- and that such confrontations have clearly happened before. A conversation later between the sisters confirms that Hepburn has been patronized and tolerated all her life.
Appopriately, Hepburn has her own space in the family manse, an old nursery the family calls The Play Room. It is here that Hepburn lives, away from the family, in what we would call "normalcy," because it is not stuffy or overlarge or empty or cold or filled with hard, impersonal statuary. The Play Room has a trapeze (child-sized) and a Punch-and-Judy stage and loveseats and musical instruments. Okay, not exactly "normalcy," but we are meant to like and appreciate the world of The Play Room more than the world of the Stuffy Family. It is here that Grant is drawn, both physically and psychologically. As we learn, he is better suited to Hepburn than her sister. He grows to realize that the sister is firmly entrenched in Papa's world, while he (Grant) is longing for arm-stretching freedom and lack of encumberances, mostly of the Bad Business World variety. Thus, Holiday becomes a morality play about the shackles of capitalism vs. the freedom of open-ended inquiry and nonconformity to the slavery that comes with wealth.
And hilarity ensues.
My favorite character is Hepburn's brother Ned. Because he is a boy, instead of having his own Play Room to live in, Ned has been forced into the World of Business -- and he loathes it. His loathing is of the passive-aggressive, snarky-bitter kind. His barbs, however, are tolerated, mostly because he is a boy and because nobody takes his bitter asides seriously -- how can they be, when this golden boy, this scion of the Upper Echelons, is obviously successful and reaping the rewards of his wealth? But Neddie detests his life. He is the only one of the family who can see things from Hepburn's point-of-view, and he wishes he could indulge in her world of The Play Room. Instead, he drinks. Which provides another cover for his barbs. Neddie stays soused throughout the entire movie -- his first scene is in church (!) where he is plainly hungover and has sustained some sort of drinking-related injury as evidenced by the white bandage on his forehead. I love Neddie. If the play upon which the movie was based was written today, Neddie would be the gay one. In 1930s America, he must hide his obvious gayness (he is conspicuously unmarried) behind alcohol. The saddest moment in the movie is at the end when Hepburn makes her escape and has to leave Neddie behind, with only a promise to return at a later date and free him. Indeed, I wept at this sad clown's life.
Oh, there is comic relief from two of Grant's chums, a free-thinking professor and his wife. The seriousness doesn't have to be taken that deeply. Watch this for Hepburn (especially) and Grant and Neddie (played by Lew Ayres) and the characteristic 1930s wit.