The HOLIDAY Handspring: A Lesson in Grace from Cary Grant

I'm in the middle of a big Cary Grant rewatch right now, and last night I caught up with HOLIDAY (1938). I first saw this movie about twenty years ago, and while I liked it well enough back then, I think I was vaguely disappointed that it didn't reach the never to be reached heights of insanity in BRINGING UP BABY (released that same year). With age sometimes comes wisdom, though, and watching this film again I'm floored by its gentle sweetness and light comic touch. (That's George Cukor finding the perfect pitch for everything, I think.)

There's so much to praise here, from the deft comic turns of Grant and Hepburn and the wonderful supporting performances of Edward Everett Horton, Jean Dixon, and Lew Ayres. What I really wanted to talk about with this little post, though, is Cary Grant's flipping.

In this movie he does some impressive gymnastics. Now, while some bits like the final backflip at the film's climax have been edited in such a way to make me think that it's someone else performing the stunt, other stunts like the handspring shown above, are clearly Grant himself.

Grant honed these skills while performing with an acrobatic troop in his youth. His handspring is all the more impressive for the fact that he uses one hand to keep his hat on as he goes over and then plants the landing with a wink and a flourish of charm. Charm, of course, is what we so often talk about when we talk about Cary Grant.

But what we should also talk about is his grace, and this movie gives us a perfect example of his grace to discuss. I don't mean the flip itself. I mean the fact that he didn't do this all the time. Most actors, if they could have done these kinds of gymnastics, would have done them in every movie. They would have turned this acrobatic skill set into a gimmick and then run it into the ground. After all, turning inspiration into gimmickry and then depleting its power through repetition is what Hollywood has always done. 

But Grant knew better than to run his acrobatic prowess into the ground. He saved it like a special gift for his audience, something he could break out once he found a perfect showcase for it. Since I haven't seen the entirety of his filmography I can't say for sure if he ever did these kind of gymnastics in another film. Perhaps he did. What I can say for sure is that he doesn't do it in any of the dozens of films of his that I've seen, which includes all the films for which he's best known. Which means that for all intents and purposes, HOLIDAY is the one film where you can see Grant doing his flips. He saved this trick for the right role in the right film. Then, he retired it, and glided away to the next role.

That's grace.