Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)

A Jerry Wald Production for Company of Artists/20th Century-Fox. Copyright 25 May 1962 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Paramount: 15 June 1962. U.S. release: July 1962. U.K. release: 22 July 1962. 10,350 feet. 115 minutes.SYNOPSIS: In "Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation", Stewart was playing his own age as banker Roger Hobbs but looking much more spruce than he had for some time. He was felicitously teamed with the redoubtable Maureen O'Hara, playing his wife Peggy who mounts a family reunion at a holiday cottage instead of the quiet vacation he'd been hoping for... Farcical situations (are) helped by the presence of teenagers' favorite, Fabian. The film had surprisingly wide appeal. — Allen Eyles in his excellent biographic book, "James Stewart".NOTES: Commenced shooting: 21 November 1961. Locations: Carillo Beach, Zuma Beach. Novelist Edward Streeter's most popular novel was "Father of the Bride" (1949).COMMENT: The idea packs plenty of promise, but only a third of that potential is actually realized on the screen, partly because some of the jests are stretched out way beyond their chuckle-some capacity, but mostly because Henry Koster's direction is so heavy-handed. Ask this guy to boil a two-minute egg and he'll bake it in an oven for a couple of hours.Nonetheless, the players try hard (perhaps too hard). Some of our favorites can be spotted in support slots. But one of the "stars" of the film is undoubtedly the wonderfully ruinous beach-house itself, "like something out of Edgar Allan Poe," as James Stewart's character tartly comments.In all, reasonably entertaining, but it could have been better!

Mr. Hobbs wants to take a nice quiet vacation to the beach for the summer but Mrs. Hobbs insists on taking the whole family, daughters, son-in-law, grandchildren, cook and various drop ins, with them. There goes his peaceful trip. The kind of role that Jimmy Stewart could play in his sleep but he and Maureen O'Hara manage to make the material better than it should be. They keep the whole enterprise moving along with some cute side stories, Fabian is charming as a suitor to their daughter who is going through growing pains not helped by her new braces and the distinctive presences of John McGiver and Marie Wilson contribute a bit of spice in small scenes of a supposedly straight laced couple who hold the key to a new job for Jimmy's son in law, John Saxon-looking particularly handsome here. Harmless fun and if you're a Stewart fan irresistible.

Jimmy Stewart plays a St. Louis bank executive who goes on vacation with his wife(Maureen O'Hara) and children on a beach front house in California, where his planned romantic getaway with his wife does not go as planned, since the children get involved with their own problems(his lovelorn teenage daughter and young son who only wants to watch television, especially westerns!) On top of that, the plumbing does not work properly at times, especially a water pump with a mind of its own.Amusing comedy is quite warm and funny, with a charming performance by Jimmy Stewart as the harried father, whose attempts at sailing and bird-watching also meet with mixed results, but film remains a nostalgic comedy of a (sadly) bygone era, but one that can still be enjoyed on DVD whenever the viewer likes.

Jimmy Stewart, as Roger Hobbs, takes his teen-aged daughter and young son on a vacation to Carmel, California, where they've rented a decrepit old beach house the size of a mansion. If that house existed today, dilapidated or not, buyers would come to blows over it if it were on the market for ten hundred thousand million dollars. The real estate office would look like Filene's Basement. There would be blood.I only mention this, irrelevant to the story though it is, because -- well, let me get another nugacity out of the way. You know when Jimmy Stewart takes his son out on the little sailboat and they pass the two breakwaters before entering the open sea? Well, that's not Carmel. That's Newport Beach. I know this because I passed between those two lights on a boat. I was also a lookout on a Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Ewing, that entered Monterey Bay, where I hurriedly reported that the ship was about to run over a man in a rubber diving suit. The man turned out to be a seal splashing around.I see that's a total of three nugacities but I don't care, any more than Nunnaly Johnson seems to have cared about this screenplay. He's thrown every conceivable problem derived from television situation comedies into the story. Stewart wears an irritated, perplexed expression throughout. He gets lost at sea in that sailboat. The water pump breaks down and when it's fixed it makes a lot of noise and shakes the house. The water heater emits a plume of steam at awkward moments. His daughter is ashamed of her braces.His wife, Maureen O'Hara, catches him in an innocent chat with a buxom Scandinavian neighbor. The situation is suggestive. His explanation: "We were reading 'The Brother Karamazov' together." Later, when she reveals that she had had lunch with a gabby Englishman, she mocks Stewart with her announcement: "We were just reading 'War and Peace' together." When I first saw this, I loved her Irish pronunciation of "together" -- "togaither." I still do. It's fey. It's charming.But, man, this is one dated movie. The jokes are straight out of the 1950s, and not as clever as those in, say, its rough contemporary, "Pillow Talk." When she's surprised, O'Hara exclaims, "Holy Moses!" And when Fabio is courting the daughter, he says he asked her to dance because of "your charm, your pure far-out charm." Then they sing a song together: "Jelly roll . . . shortcake . . . malted milk . . . milk shake." It's a relaxed and enjoyable comedy if you aren't familiar with the format of 50s TV comedies. (With a few changes, Stewart could have been Ralph Kramden.) The kids will enjoy it, though I'm no longer certain they'd get the gags or identify much with the on screen teens, but if you're an adult you really have to inhibit your suspension of disbelief. You have to practically strangle it.