Holiday (1938)

     "...again turns in a smooth performance of the type that has made him one of Hollywood's most-sought-after leading men."

With Katharine Hepburn.

Holiday - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"When Philip Barry's Holiday was produced on Broadway in 1928, Hope Williams took the comedy's outstanding role, that of Linda Seton.  Her understudy was an unknown, inexperienced actress named Katharine Hepburn.  For two years Miss Hepburn marked time offstage, waiting for her chance. It never came.  In 1930 the play was filmed.  This time Ann Harding was Linda.  Now Columbia's refilming of Holiday gives Katharine Hepburn her first chance at the coveted role that seems made to order for her.  

The first screen Holiday was an almost literal transcription of the play.  The modern version, brilliantly adapted by Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman, is equally faithful, forwarding its slight story almost entirely by conversation.  But it is superb conversation - part of it Barry's own, the rest brought up to date with significant and satiric topical allusions.  

Directed by George Cukor, the story resolves the triangle with an intelligence and penetrating humor that gives an excellent cast a field day.   Henry Kolker, Lew Ayres, Jean Dixon, and Edward Everett Horton are outstanding in lesser roles; Cary Grant again turns in a smooth performance of the type that has made him one of Hollywood's most-sought-after leading men.  

It is more to the point that Katharine Hepburn gives one of the most successful characterizations of her screen career.  Several weeks ago the Independent Theatre Owners Association attacked a batch of high salaried stars which it considered on the skids to oblivion.  Miss Hepburn was one of them.  At the time, Jack Cohn, vice-president of Columbia, rallied to her defense.  Now he is turning the association's attack to his own ends.  The advertising campaign for Holiday will sound one note across the country - "Is it true what they say about Hepburn?" Judging from the film, the producer knew the answer in advance.

- Newsweek

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number 31 - Holiday (Lobby Card Style)

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For more, see also:

On This Day 15 June 2020

On This Day 15 June 2021

Quote From Today 14 June 2022

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

   "Actor Grant...more interested in an intercostal clavicle for his nearly reconstructed Brontosaurus than he is in bony, scatterbrained Miss Hepburn."

With Katharine Hepburn.

Bringing Up Baby - Review is taken from 'The Films of Cary Grant' by Donald Deschner (1973):

"When she was college girl ten years ago, red-headed, Melpomene-mouthed Katharine Hepburn, in a trailing white nightgown cross-hatched with gold ribbon, regaled Bryn Mawr as Pandora in The Woman in the Moon.  And since then most of Actress Hepburn's public appearances have been for the catch-in-the-throat cinema, playing alternately great ladies and emotional starvelings of brittle bravado.  For Bringing Up Baby she plumps her broad A in the midst of a frantically farcical plot involving Actor Cary Grant, a terrier, a leopard, a Brontosaurus skeleton and a crotchety collection of Connecticut quidnuncs, proves she can be as amusingly skittery a comedienne as the best of them.  

Actor Grant is an earnest, bespectacled paleontologist who is more interested in an intercostal clavicle for his nearly reconstructed Brontosaurus than he is in bony, scatterbrained Miss Hepburn.  Miss Hepburn has a pet leopard named Baby, and an aunt with $1,000,000 waiting for the right museum.  On the trail of the million, Actor Grant crosses paths with Actress Hepburn and Baby, loses the scent in the tangled Connecticut wildwood.  In the jail of a town very like arty Westport, the trails collide.  Most surprising scene:  Actress Hepburn, dropping her broad A for a nasal Broadway accent, knocking Town Constable Walter Catlett and Jailmate Grant completely off balance with: "Hey, flatfoot!  I'm gonna unbutton my puss and shoot the woiks.  An' I wouldn' be squealin' if he hadn' a give me the runaround for another twist."  

Under the deft, directorial hand of Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby comes off second only to last year's whimsical high spot, The Awful Truth, but its gaily inconsequent situations cannot match the fuselike fatality of that extraordinary picture.  Bringing Up Baby's slapstick is irrational, rough-and-tumble, undignified, obviously devised with the idea that the cinema audience will enjoy (as it does) seeing stagy Actress Hepburn get a proper mussing up." 

- Time

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Number 30 -Bringing Up Baby (Lobby Card Style)

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On This Day, March 18th 2021

Quote From Today, March 18th 2022  

Quote From Today... The Philadelphia Story (1941)

  "When I was trying to stop drinking, I read anything."

With Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart.

The Philadelphia Story was Cary Grant's 38th full length feature film.

Macaulay Connor: What's this? Is it my book?

C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes.

Macaulay Connor: C. K. Dexter Haven, you have unsuspected depth!

C. K. Dexter Haven: Thanks, old chap.

Macaulay Connor: But have you read it?

C. K. Dexter Haven: When I was trying to stop drinking, I read anything.

Macaulay Connor: And did you stop drinking?

C. K. Dexter Haven: Yes. Your book didn't do it, though.

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36 -
Number38 - The Philadelphia Story (Lobby Card Style)

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Quote From Today... Sylvia Scarlett (1936)

"...nobody's enemy but me own."

With Katharine Hepburn.

Sylvia Scarlett was Cary Grant's 21st full-length feature film.

Jimmy Monkley: Little friend of all the world, nobody's enemy but me own.

Sylvia Scarlett: Yeah, I can tell that by the look of you.

New Artwork by Rebekah Hawley at Studio36
Number 21 - Sylvia Scarlett (Lobby Card Style)

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Quote From Today... Holiday (1938)

 "I don't call what I've been doing living."

With Katharine Hepburn.

Holiday was Cary Grant's 31st full length feature film.

Johnny Case: I don't call what I've been doing living.

Linda Seton: And what do you recommend for yourself, doctor?

Johnny Case: A holiday.

Linda Seton: For how long?

Johnny Case: As long as I need.

Linda Seton: You mean just to play?

Johnny Case: No. I've been working since I was 10. I want to find out why I'm working. It can't just be to pay bills and pile up more money. Even if you do, the government's going to take most of it.

Linda Seton: But what is the answer?

Johnny Case: I don't know. That's what I intend to find out. The world's changing out there. There are a lot of new, exciting ideas running around. Some may be right and some may be cockeyed but they're affecting all our lives. I want to know how I stand, where I fit in the picture, what it's all gonna mean to me. I can't find that out sitting behind some desk in an office, so as soon as I get enough money together, I'm going to knock off for a while.

"Lights, camera...action!" - The Directors - Part 4

So there were four directors who worked with Cary Grant on three films each.

They were, Marion Gering, George Cukor, Leo McCarey and George Stevens.

Marion Gering:

19th June 1901 - 19th April 1977

Devil and the Deep (1932)

With Charles Laughton and Tallulah Bankhead.

Madame Butterfly (1932)

With Sylvia Sidney

Thirty-Day Princess (1934)

Again with Sylvia Sidney

George Cukor:

7th July 1899 - 24th January 1983

On Grant -"One of the reasons he was so successful as an actor was that he truly just behaved like he was a normal guy and like he didn't look like that."

Sylvia Scarlett (1936)

With Katharine Hepburn.

Holiday (1938)

Again with Katharine Hepburn.

The Philadelphia Story (1941)

With George Cukor, John Howard and Katharine Hepburn.

George Cukor was awarded an Oscar for Best Director for The Philadelphia Story. He also directed many Oscar nominated performances.

Leo McCarey:

3rd October 1898 - 5th July 1969

The Awful Truth (1937)

Publicity shot with Irene Dunne and Leo McCarey.

Leo McCarey won the Oscar for Best Director.

Once Upon A Honeymoon (1942)

With Ginger Rogers.

An Affair to Remember (1957)

With Deborah Kerr.

George Stevens :

18th December 1904 - 8th March 1975

Gunga Din (1939)

On the set of Gunga Din (above) relaxing and (below) with George Stevens.

Penny Serenade (1941)

On set of the film that bought him his first Oscar nomination.

The Talk of the Town (1942)

With George Stevens, Jean Arthur and Ronald Colman.

Four directors completed two film projects each with Cary Grant...

..."Lights, camera...action!" - The Directors - Part 5

On This Day...Holiday (1938)

Today in 1938, saw the release of Cary Grant's 31st full length feature film, Holiday.

This was his 3rd film with leading lady Katharine Hepburn, playing the role of Linda Seton.

The title of the film when released in Great Britain was  Free to Live, Unconventional Linda.

The story is about a restless Johnny Case (Grant), wanting to take time out and see the world

He becomes engaged to Julia Seton(Doris Nolan) who tries to make him conform, unlike her sister Linda (Hepburn), who falls in love with him.

Based on a Broadway play by Philip Barry.

Newsweek wrote - "Cary Grant again turns in a smooth performance of the type that has made him one of Hollywood's most-sought-after leading men.

It is more to the point that Katharine Hepburn gives one of her most successful characterizations of her film career."

Cary Grant's acrobatics seemed to have rubbed off on Katharine Hepburn.

They were both known for doing their own stunts. Hepburn thought her double didn't have the correct deportment.

With Jean Dixon, Katharine Hepburn, Lew Ayres and Edward Everett Horton.

Lobby Cards:

Directed by George Cukor

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Running time: 94 minutes

Leading Ladies...Part 1.

Cary Grant, over the course of his film career, starred alongside the most iconic female stars of the time and who still maintain that status, even today!

The list is impressive.

Some actresses appeared more than once with Cary Grant on screen.

Katharine Hepburn:

She appeared in the most films with Cary Grant, a total of four times.

Also, on July 20th, 1942, on the radio, in The Philadelphia Story.

Sylvia Scarlett (1936)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Holiday (1938)

The Philadelphia Story (1941)

"She was this slip of a woman and I never liked skinny women.

But she had this thing, this air you might call it, the most totally magnetic woman I'd

ever seen, and probably ever seen since.

You had to look at her, you had to listen to her. There was no escaping her."

- Cary Grant

"Cary was a lovely, very generous actor. A good comedian. And so funny. He had a wonderful laugh. When you looked at that face of his, it was full of a wonderful kind of laughter at the back of the eyes."

- Katharine Hepburn

Irene Dunne:

Appearing in three films.

Two were probably amongst the best screwball comedies on film.

Her radio appearences with Cary Grant also included:

Theodora Goes West (June 13th, 1938)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House  

(Oct 10th, 1950)

The Awful Truth (Jan 18th, 1955)

The Awful Truth (1937)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Penny Serenade (1941)

"Her timing was marvelous. She was so good that she made comedy look easy.

If she'd made it look as difficult as it really is, she would have won her Oscar."

- Cary Grant

"I loved working with Cary - every minute of it. Between takes he was so amusing with his cockney stories. I was his best audience. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The more I laughed, the more he went on."

- Irene Dunne

Deborah Kerr:

Appearing in three films with Cary Grant.

Dream Wife (1953)

An Affair to Remember (1957)

The Grass Is Greener (1961)

"Mostly, we have manufactured ladies - with the exception of Ingrid, Grace, Deborah and Audrey."

- Cary Grant

"His elegance, his wit, his true professionalism were outstanding, and I learned so much from just watching him work. The ability to ad-lib, the timing of a double-take, in fact, all his timing - so essential for true comedy."

- Deborah Kerr

Myrna Loy:

Appearing in three films.

In 1941, June 30th, she also joined Cary Grant for a radio adaptation, I Love You Again.

Wings in the Dark (1935)

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947)

Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (1948)

Carole Lombard:

Appearing in three films with Cary Grant, and one radio performance on December 11th, 1939 - In Name Only.

Sinners in the Sun (1932)

The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)

In Name Only (1939)

Sylvia Sidney:

Appeared in three films.

Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)

Madame Butterfly (1932)

Thirty-Day Princess (1934)

So six actresses, appeared in three or more films with Cary Grant.

But ten more starred in two films each with him.

That will be the subject of Leading Ladies: Part Two...