Tonight we watched ‘Holiday,’ the 1938 George Cukor film with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Grant plays an ‘everyman’ named Johnny Case who while on vacation in Lake Placid falls in love with a girl (Julia) who turns out to be the rich daughter of a banking tycoon; her sister (Linda) is Katherine Hepburn.
Back in New York, Julia — who is very much her father’s daughter — turns out to be less free-spirited than Johnny, who becomes increasingly attracted to Linda. Although Johnny is on the verge of making enough money in some sort of stock deal to retire, Julia is disappointed by his plans to take some time off and ‘find himself.’ She wants him to take a position in her father’s bank and seriously rake it in.
Hepburn’s Linda, however, also wants to travel; she hates living in her father’s house and is very irreverent. (She has never gotten drunk, though, unlike her browbeaten alcoholic brother.)
Hepburn is glamorous and strong and nostalgic for the past; she craves love but is also principled and would never betray her sister. It is difficult not to root for her; you might say she was the ‘Lauren Conrad’ of her era.
