During the early part of his career, in the thirties and early forties, James Stewart appeared in some of the best-known American comedies of all time- "Mr Smith Goes to Washington", "Destry Rides Again", "The Shop around the Corner", "The Philadelphia Story", and so on. After his return from wartime service, however, his comic touch seemed to desert him; a number of his comedies from the late forties, such as "Magic Town", were flops. Even the now-revered "It's a Wonderful Life" was not a great success when first released. Stewart was to make one last great comedy, "Harvey", in 1950, but thereafter his career took a more serious turn, exemplified by his several collaborations with Hitchcock and the series of psychological Westerns he made with Anthony Mann. In the sixties, however, Stewart returned to comedy, and "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation" from 1962 is an example. His character, Roger Hobbs, is a stressed, overworked banker from St Louis who takes his family on holiday to a quiet seaside cottage in California, only to find that he has brought most of his problems with him. The cottage turns out to be old-fashioned and dilapidated. His teenage son Danny is a sullen, moody youngster who only wants to watch television. His youngest daughter Katey refuses to leave the cottage and is obsessed with the idea that, because of a new set of dental braces, she will never find a boyfriend. His two elder daughters bring their husbands and children with them. One of Roger's sons-in-law, Stan, is unemployed and the other, Byron, is an eccentric academic with unorthodox ideas about how to discipline children. (Byron's preferred solution is that one should not discipline them at all). The film details how Roger tries to overcome all these problems (and, of course, this being a comedy, how he succeeds in doing so). The film it is based on "Mr. Hobbs' Vacation" by Edward Streeter, a book I have never read. Indeed, before I saw the film I had never heard of it or of its author. Yet when I watched the film recently, it seemed to me all too obvious that it was based upon a novel. The reason that I was able to make this prediction with such confidence is that the film-makers make one of the frequent mistakes committed by those who try to base films upon a literary source, namely that of trying to deal with more plot-lines and more thematic material than the traditional feature-film format can comfortably accommodate. (By coincidence, the next film I saw after this one, Delbert Mann's version of Dickens's "David Copperfield", is one which commits the same fault even more egregiously). The film features several plotlines- the Danny plotline, the Katey plotline, the Stan plotline and the Byron plotline- and none of these are dealt with as fully as they might have been. It is as if the scriptwriters were determined not to omit any developments from Streeter's story without worrying whether a running time of around two hours was long enough to do them all full justice. Some episodes struck me as implausible, especially the one in which Roger deals with Katey's lack of self-confidence by bribing a young man named Joe, played by the then-popular pop singer Fabian, to pay attention to her. (Like that would work in real life!) The scriptwriters seem to have overlooked the obvious obstacles to a romance between the handsome Joe and the rather homely Katey, namely firstly that she is from St Louis and he from California, more than a thousand miles away, and that he is likely to move onto another girl as soon as she has returned home. (A boy with the looks of Fabian will not want for female admirers). Stewart does enough to show that his gift for comedy had not entirely deserted him during his lengthy absence from the genre, and he receives good support from Maureen O'Hara as his attractive wife Peggy, even if she does look improbably youthful to be playing a grandmother to several children. There are also some amusing scenes, such as the one where Roger is forced to accompany Stan's pompous potential employer on a bird-watching expedition. Overall, however, ''Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation" does not come close to the standard of Stewart's great comedies from his earlier period. 5/10

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.

Out of 20th Century Fox, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation is directed by Henry Koster and stars James Stewart and Maureen O'Hara. The film is based on a novel by Edward Streeter and also features a popular singer of the time, Fabian. The adaptation for the screen is by Nunnally Johnson, music is from Henry Mancini & William C. Mellor provides photography (location work mostly in California on Laguna Beach and Dana Point). Plot sees Stewart as Hobbs, a harried city business man who after yearning to take his family to the seaside for a vacation, finally gets his wish. However, once arriving at their destination they find that peace and relaxation is hard to come by.Middle tier Jimmy Stewart piece that merrily skips along without breaking any comedy boundaries. It's framed around all-American family values and tribulations, and even tho the situational comedy set ups are far from fluent, Johnson's script pings with sharp references and gags. Unsurprisingly it's Stewart who carries the main portion of the comedy throughout, both in his dialogue delivery and his visual ticks and mannerisms. Be it laying down a funny walk or pulling faces at the sight of Valerie Varda's cleavage, Stewart's acting prowess finds amusement where others struggle to do so. Maureen O'Hara is pretty as Mrs Hobbs and is good foil for Stewart, but outside of an amusing turn from John McGiver the rest of the cast don't fare so well. With Fabian providing further proof that he should have stuck to singing.Enjoyable time filler if some what low on the revisit scale. 6/10