James Stewart's title character had hoped for a romantic getaway with wife Peggy (Maureen O'Hara), possibly to Hawaii or somewhere in Europe. Instead, she talks him into a month of family bonding at a friend's beach house somewhere south of San Francisco. Taking along their stern Finnish cook, Brenda (Minerva Urecal), teenage daughter Katey (Laurie Peters), and TV-addicted son Danny (Michael Burns), the Hobbs are shocked to find their vacation home a dilapidated Victorian nightmare, and the crude conditions quickly scare off Brenda, who leaves in a huff.

Meanwhile, the Hobbs's older, married daughters arrive with their husbands and children in tow. Each comes with a lot of baggage, both real (there's a labored sequence of Hobbs carrying mountains of luggage to their rooms) and psychological: Susan's (Natalie Trundy) husband Stan (Josh Peine) is out of work, creating enormous friction between them, while Janie's (Lili Gentle) man Byron (John Saxon) has an eye for the ladies, and immediately starts flirting with blonde beachcomber Marika (Valerie Varda). Adding to the trouble, Katey is unhappy and self-conscious about her new braces, and at a local dance Hobbs has to pay local boy Joe (Fabian) and others $5 to dance with her.

Adapted by Nunnally Johnson from Edward Streeter's novel (he wrote the not dissimilar Father of the Bride), Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation mostly avoids sitcom-style slapstick in favor of what by 1962 standards was a more realistic approach to its characters, coupled with a moderately cynical attitude. The result is a picture that gets most of its laughs through the performances and its sharp dialogue rather than with sight gags. Stewart's Hobbs is a put-upon father with a dry wit, and Johnson's script is full of funny dialogue that's more acerbic than jokey. When they first arrive at the beach house and the kids start complaining, an annoyed Hobbs tells them, "If it's good enough for Edgar Allan Poe, it's good enough for us." And, upon entering, when Peggy asks him, "Have you ever seen anyplace quite so horrible?" "Not since Dragonwyck."

The beach house's telephone and its party line offers a good running gag, with Hobbs invariably picking up the phone as two elderly women graphically discuss their various maladies: "There's still a little seepage, but if the stitches hold out...."

Compared with the Beach Party movies and the Gidget sequels, Katey's loneliness and eventual summer romance with Joe is realistically played, and Laurie Peters is especially good. Her Tony nomination for The Sound of Music brought her to the attention of Hollywood, but after Hobbs she starred in just one other movie, the charming Cliff Richard musical Summer Holiday (1963), and that was made in Britain. Part of the charm of these scenes can be attributed to director Henry Koster, who in the 1930s had directed Deanna Durbin in a series of films that exhibit the same sensitivity for the concerns and problems of teenagers. Only one grievously misplaced musical number (an all-too-obvious commercial concession) with Peters and Fabian rings false.

Of course, the film is really a vehicle for Jimmy Stewart, who spent most of the decade growing older in Westerns of varying quality, with the occasional and generally forgettable comedy interspersed among them. In an especially bad year for the studio, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation was Fox's biggest hit after The Longest Day, but neither of Stewart's follow-ups, Take Her, She's Mine (1963) nor Dear Brigitte (1965), also directed by Koster, proved as successful.

The film recovers from a badly-conceived opening reel, which begins with Stewart providing narration over footage of a rocket launch. (How many, I wonder, thought they had accidentally wandered into a showing of X-15, the tepid test pilot film also narrated by Jimmy?) This is followed by an excruciatingly static scene of Hobbs dictating a long letter which, in light of what follows, makes little sense. The narration continues throughout the film, and none of Stewart's yammering is any good. It completely sabotages one potentially very funny scene where Hobbs tries to start a Rube Goldberg-esque water pump. Without the narration, it's a neat little bit in the tradition of silent comedy; with the narration, it's positively deadly.

Fortunately, the rest of the film is fairly-packed with amusing set pieces, and Stewart's reactions to the chaos around him are consistently funny. One especially good sequence has Hobbs taking his pre-teen son out sailing. When the boy expresses admiration for his father's sailing skill, Hobbs, actually completely inexperienced, uncomfortably fakes it, badly navigating through the harbor and nearly hitting every boat on the water. (The very phoniness of the rear-screen projection actually helps.)

The production is alternately glossy and garish. Sets are over-lit and the beach house's ugliness is overdone. (It's also unrealistically close to the water.) Henri Mancini's score is not his best but it is pleasant and its main themes are catchy, and the title design is especially bright and attractive.

Video & Audio

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation was a constant presence in the early days of cable-TV, but back then its CinemaScope image was panned-and-scanned and visually unappealing. Fox's new DVD is 16:9 enhanced and essential for director Koster (who helmed the first CinemaScope release, 1953's The Robe) and cinematographer William C. Mellor maximize the format throughout. The image has that Bausch & Lomb lens induced graininess and drained color, but otherwise is fine. A bigger issue is the absence of 4-track stereo. The DVD offers the film in both mono and the same faux stereo used on library titles dating back to the 1930s, along with mono tracks in Spanish and French. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are included as well.

Extra Features

The light sampling of extras include a 16:9 Trailer, complete with text and narration, which hard-sells the family-film aspect. There's also a Fox Movietone News excerpt, with players from the Minnesota Gophers, en route to the Rose Bowl, visiting the yacht club set on Fox's Beverly Hills lot. Fox Flix is a batch of semi-related trailers, for A Guide for the Married Man, Bedazzled, Bandolero! (all 16:9) and Call Northside 777.

Parting Thoughts

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation is another one of those movies that's perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon, a vicariously enjoyed getaway.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf - The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune and Taschen's forthcoming Cinema Nippon. Visit Stuart's Cine Blogarama here.