IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030241/
IMDB rating: 7,9
Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Binnie Barnes
"Both film versions of Phillip Barry's stage comedy Holiday have their merits, but the 1938 version has the added advantage of supercharged star power.
George Cukor was arguably the best and most consistent director of sophisticated romantic comedies in the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s. Literate, thoughtful, and refined, his efforts in the genre were blueprints for all who followed, and Holiday was no exception. Next to The Philadelphia story, the film is perhaps his most-loved comedy. An enjoyable screen version of the same Phillip Barry play had been produced just eight years earlier, starring Mary Astor and Robert Ames, but Cukor improved on it in just about every way. The only element in which the remake does not improve on the original is in the casting of Hepburn's alcoholic younger brother; charming though Lew Ayres is in the 1938 film, he is still outclassed by Monroe Owsley in Holiday 1930. Katharine Hepburn managed to temporarily defray her 'box office poison' onus when Holiday proved to be a success; alas, her next film, Bringing up baby (which reteamed her with Grant), was a financial bust, compelling her to return to Broadway - where she made a spectacular comeback in another Philip Barry play, The Philadelphia Story.
This is the second of three times that Cukor worked with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn was Cukor's favorite star, and he was instrumental in her success as an actress ever since her first leading role, in the director's 1932 film Bill of divorcement." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/holiday-v22716
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