George Cukor's 1938 rendition of HOLIDAY is both a delightful banter-filled screwball comedy that glows with affection for its collection of willing outsiders and a lovely romantic tribute to the importance of finding one's rightful place and purpose. The recurring use of play as a means of learning about and coping with the world is both childlike and sophisticated. The foolish, starry-eyed immaturity of Cary Grant's scene-setting courtship of proud little rich girl Doris Nolan while on his first-ever holiday contrasts with his perhaps equally foolish and starry-eyed plans for second, a pause from a long arduous climb up from poverty to learn what the climb is for and where he wants it to take him. Grant describes Nolan as the "perfect playmate" before discovering that she is, in fact, all business, but their ill-advised fling does have its rewards, in the discovery of a charmingly playful Katharine Hepburn.

Slightly stagebound and perhaps not as well-known and well-regarded as other Cukor efforts, other Hepburn-Grant vehicles, HOLIDAY remains a glittering expression of the idea that only the man who says no is free.

"Despite some very funny barbed dialogue, mostly centering on two clashing couples among the engagement party guests (one liberal, the other proto-Fascist), the film is less a satire on the rich than an acknowledgment that privilege has its drawbacks; its key scene, accordingly, takes place in the nursery playroom, a place redolent of childhood hopes and dreams, which Hepburn and her unhappily alcoholic brother (Ayres) unconsciously use as a retreat from their unwelcome social obligations. Often underrated by comparison with The Philadelphia Story (both are based on plays by Philip Barry), but even better because its glitteringly polished surface is undermined by veins of real feeling, it is one of Cukor's best films."
-- TIME OUT FILM GUIDE

"George Cukor's masterful 1938 film of Philip Barry's play about a society girl (Katharine Hepburn) who falls for her sister's charming, eccentric fiance (Cary Grant). The light comedy achieves perfection, but beneath it lies Cukor's serious concern for the ways in which we choose to live our lives. There are a thousand nonconformist comedies, but only one Holiday."
-- Dave Kehr, THE CHICAGO READER

What: HOLIDAY, screening as part of "Madcap Manhattan" on a double bill with THE AWFUL TRUTH [McCarey/1937]

When: Saturday, December 12 at 1:00, 4:40 and 8:20 PM

Where: Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street

Also of interest this week:

• Friday, December 11 at 4:30, 6:50 and 9:40 PM: TREELESS MOUNTAIN [Kim/2008], screening as part of "The Next Director: Bradley Rust Gray & So Yong Kim"; the 6:50 screening features a Q&A with director So Yong Kim (BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn)
• Thursday, December 17 at 8:00 PM: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS [Tarantino/2009], screening with as part of "The Contenders, 2009", featuring discussion with Quentin Tarantino and Elvis Mitchell (Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street)

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