The Devil's Holiday (1930)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Edmund Goulding's morality tale stars Nancy Carroll as a pretty, gold digging manicurist who attracts the wealthy heir to a harvesting machine fortune (Phillips Holmes). After he pursues her energetically, she agrees to marry him, but when he brings her home to his family's country estate, his father (Hobart Bosworth in a plummy performance right out of 19th century melodrama) summons her to his den for a confrontation about her true motives. There, he swiftly draws out the worst in her and offers her $50,000 to end the marriage. Meanwhile, out on the staircase, the young husband falls and injures himself severely during a violent confrontation with his disapproving older brother. Nouveau riche Nancy nevertheless high tails it back to the big city to spend freely and pack for a dream trip to Paris. Trouble is, she slowly realizes she actually loves Holmes, now a semi-invalid. Can she, will she, redeem herself? It doesn't take long to find out in the perfunctorily structured plot resolution. Holmes and Carroll are more convincing here than in another pairing from around the same time ("Stolen Heaven," 1931).

Hallie (Nancy Carroll) is put to work by Charlie (Ned Sparks). She has to wine and dine wealthy David Stone (Phillips Holmes) so that he falls in love with her. He can then be influenced into buying farm machinery from Charlie. But David's brother Mark (James Kirkwood) confronts Hallie and calls her a prostitute. Her reaction to get even with Mark is to marry David. She is given a $50,000 pay-off by David's father Ezra (Hobart Bosworth) if she leaves David forever and gets out of their lives. She accepts and goes. However, in the meantime, David becomes ill and Hallie has a change of heart....This is one boring film. The acting is very poor, especially from the retard that plays David Stone - a terrible actor. He starts well but becomes laughably bad, eg, the scenes where he slaps his brother Mark, and towards the end when he relapses into his illness. Ha ha ha....but it's not meant to be funny....ha ha ....Then there are the gruesome twosome of Mark and Ezra Stone who belong in a horror movie along with Dr Reynolds as played by Paul Lukas. He must surely have been considered for the role of Dracula with his stupid accent. Bela Lugosi is a carbon copy of this guy. Throw in the very irritating Ned Sparks with his annoying chirpy character, and that stupid voice that he affects and this film is one very big, unfunny joke. And to round things off, Nancy Carroll isn't particularly good either.The story also sucks and is completely unbelievable. Every relationship between every character doesn't work and it is laughable how Nancy Carroll, who doesn't give a fig about Phillips Holmes, suddenly falls in love with him. What a nonsense! The only way you will enjoy this is if you laugh coz it's so bad. It really is a pile of dung.

Beautiful manicurist Nancy Carroll (as Hallie Hobart) sets her sights on handsome Philips Holmes (as David Stone), the son of wealthy wheat farmer Hobart Bosworth (as Ezra Stone). Professing to hate men, Ms. Carroll is only interested in luring Mr. Holmes in for a lucrative business deal. Holmes easily falls in love, but older brother James Kirkwood (as Mark Stone) brands Carroll a low-life gold-digger. To get even with the straight-laced Stone family, Carroll accepts Holmes' marriage proposal. Then, while Carroll and the family negotiate the cost of her departure, she falls unexpectedly in love… Well, make that expectedly… "The Devil's Holiday" is a creaky, but worthwhile "early talkie" drama. First of all, it features Carroll's second-place finishing "Academy Award" performance as "Best Actress" (Norma Shearer won for her "Divorcée"). At the time, Carroll was a considered a "new" talking pictures star; in that respect, she was the first "talkie"-dominant actress to move in on the "Quigley Poll" top ten list of established "silent" stars. Carroll was #10 in 1929, and seemed assured of super-stardom with the new dramatic range she showed in "Devil's Holiday" (where she displayed real sweat and tears).Holmes is also at his best, playing the love-struck rich kid with wide-eyed innocence. And, he gets one of those great "smacked on the staircase" scenes. Holmes falls in love three times in this movie, but only for Nancy Carroll. She and Holmes had great chemistry, as you'll see; and, box office returns dictated they would be re-teamed fairly quickly (for the close to, but not quite "Stolen Heaven"). Writer/director Edmund Goulding manages well considering it was early 1930. You also get two pioneer players, Messrs. Kirkwood and Bosworth, in featured roles; and, the minor cast members are used very well.******* The Devil's Holiday (5/9/30) Edmund Goulding ~ Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, James Kirkwood, Hobart Bosworth

Turgid by today's standards and pretty stagy, yet THE DEVIL'S HOLIDAY offers solid performances by Nancy Carroll as a party girl who lands a hick (Phillips Holmes), in from the wheat belt, in a scam. As Hallie, a woman who no scruples and who hates men, Carroll won an Oscar nomination in a flashy role. Holmes is also excellent as the sensitive and naive youth.Hobart Bosworth and James Kirkwood (as the father and brother) are oddly effective in their stereotypical roles. Ned Sparks and Jed Prouty play a couple of sharpies, and Zasu Pitts has a small role as the hotel operator. Paul Lukas shows up (badly cast) as a rural doctor.While the plot veers toward the ludicrous, the actors remain solid and convincing, no easy job.