- Death Takes a Holiday
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For the Supernatural episode, see Death Takes a Holiday (Supernatural).
Death Takes a Holiday 
Video coverDirected by Mitchell Leisen Produced by E. Lloyd Sheldon
Emanuel CohenScreenplay by Maxwell Anderson
Gladys LehmanBased on Death Takes a Holiday (play) by Alberto Casella Starring Fredric March
Evelyn Venable
Guy Standing
Kent Taylor
Helen Westley
Henry Travers
Kathleen HowardCinematography Charles Lang Distributed by Paramount Pictures Release date(s) March 30, 1934 Running time 79 min. Country USA Language English Death Takes a Holiday is a 1934 romantic drama starring Fredric March, Evelyn Venable and Guy Standing, based on the Italian play La Morte in Vacanze by Alberto Casella.
Contents
Synopsis
After years of questioning why people fear him, Death (March) takes on human form for three days so that he can mingle among the mortals and find an answer. He finds a host in Duke Lambert (Standing) after revealing himself and his intentions to the Duke and takes up temporary residence in the Duke's villa. However, events soon spiral out of control as he falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia (Venable), the only woman unafraid of him. As he falls in love with her, Duke Lambert, who is also the father of Grazia's mortal lover Corrado (Taylor), begs him to give Grazia up and leave her among the living. Death must decide whether or not to seek his own happiness, or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.
Releases
The theatrical release of the film was on March 30, 1934. The home video releases have been:
- Death Takes a Holiday (VHS). Universal Studios. March 8, 1999.
- Death Takes a Holiday (DVD). Universal Studios. January 9, 2007. as part of the Meet Joe Black Ultimate Edition
- Death Takes a Holiday (DVD). Universal Studios. January 11, 2010.
Reception
The film was an enormous critical and commercial success. Time called it "thoughtful and delicately morbid", while Mordaunt Hall for the New York Times wrote that "it is an impressive picture, each scene of which calls for close attention". Richard Watts, Jr for the New York Herald Tribune described March's performance as one of the film's "chief virtues".
Remakes and adaptations
It aired as the drama of the week on Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theatre on March 22, 1937 and starred Fredric March as Death and his wife, actress Florence Eldridge, as Grazia. (Listen to it online here.)[1].
Universal Studios, which acquired the rights to the film in 1962 following a merger with then-owners MCA, made a 1971 television production featuring Yvette Mimieux, Monte Markham, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas and Bert Convy. Loy related in her biography that the production was marred by a decline in filming production standards; she described a frustrated Douglas storming off the set and returning to his home in New York when a tour guide interrupted the filming of one of his dramatic scenes to point out Rock Hudson's dressing room.
The film was remade by Universal again in 1998 as Meet Joe Black starring Brad Pitt, Claire Forlani and Anthony Hopkins.
It was adapted into a musical by Maury Yeston with the book by Peter Stone and Thomas Meehan. It began previews Off-Broadway on June 10, and officially opened on July 21, 2011, in a limited engagement through September 4, in the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre in a production by Roundabout Theatre Company.[2]
References
- ^ "Lux Radio Theatre Episode List". http://www.freeotrshows.com/otr/l/Lux_Radio_Theater.html. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
- ^ Jones, Kenneth. Julian Ovenden's Reaper Has a Song in His Heart in Death Takes a Holiday, Premiering in NYC". Playbill.com, June 10, 2011
- Loy, Myrna and Kotsilibis-Davies, James - Being and Becoming, Alfred A. Kopf, Inc. 1987, ISBN 1-55611-101-0
- Quirk, Lawrence J. - The Films of Fredric March, The Citadel Press, 1971, ISBN 0-8065-0413-7
External links
- Death Takes a Holiday (1934) at the Internet Movie Database
- Death Takes a Holiday at AllRovi
Films directed by Mitchell Leisen 1930s Cradle Song (1933) · Death Takes a Holiday (1934) · Murder at the Vanities (1934) · Behold My Wife (1934) · Four Hours to Kill! (1935) · Hands Across the Table (1935) · Thirteen Hours by Air (1936) · The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936) · Swing High, Swing Low (1937) · Easy Living (1937) · The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938) · Artists and Models Abroad (1938) · Midnight (1939)1940s Remember the Night (1940) · Arise, My Love (1940) · I Wanted Wings (1941) · Hold Back the Dawn (1941) · The Lady is Willing (1942) · Take a Letter, Darling (1942) · No Time for Love (1943) · Lady in the Dark (1944) · Frenchman's Creek (1944) · Practically Yours (1944) · Kitty (1945) · Masquerade in Mexico (1945) · To Each His Own (1946) · Suddenly, It's Spring (1947) · Golden Earrings (1947) · Dream Girl (1948) · Bride of Vengeance (1949) · Song of Surrender (1949)1950s No Man of Her Own (1950) · Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950) · The Mating Season (1951) · Darling, How Could You! (1951) · Young Man with Ideas (1952) · Tonight We Sing (1953) · Bedevilled (1955) · The Girl Most Likely (1958)Categories:- 1934 films
- Paramount Pictures films
- Personifications of death
- Black-and-white films
- Films directed by Mitchell Leisen
- Romantic fantasy films
- American films
- English-language films
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