Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

curt-simpkins This is a great movie. I could do without Fabian, he can't sing worth a darn but I guess he provides some eye candy for the female audience. The duet he does with Laurie Peters proves that she is a much better singer than he could ever be. I do appreciate the scene in which Fabian's character "Joe" returns the $5.00 to Stewart's character. That indicates that "Joe" has honor and integrity. I do have a trivia question though: Fairly early in the film there is a scene in the Hobbs' bedroom with Stewart and O'Hara. Behind them there is a figurine, a sculpture of a female head that also appears in other films, to name a couple of them "Harvey" (also with James Stewart) and "D Day the sixth of June". I am certain that I am forgetting other films in which this sculpture appears. Does anyone know why this art piece appears in several different films? There must be a reason for it.

classicsoncall Well, what married man can't relate to the travails and perils of a family vacation. This picture brought to mind my own family getaways, making me wonder how I didn't break my arm trying to swat the kids fighting in the back seat of the car with the other hand precariously balanced on the steering wheel. Only the Traveling Wilburys managed to ease the trip, as everyone seemed to get into their song called 'End of the Line' with the repeated refrain, 'Well it's alright'. When that one came on, it was like a half time break from all the arguing and 'he started it' beeswax.With the opening credits, I was intrigued by the mention of Minerva Urecal in the cast. I picture her as a creepy housekeeper from a wide variety of genre films of the Forties, so what does she show up as here? A creepy housekeeper for the Hobbs family with the unlikely name of Brenda. I wish she had more of a role in the story, she could have been put in charge of that little rugrat in the story that kept calling Roger Hobbs (Stewart) 'boompa'. I was surprised Hobbs didn't give him a boompa right up side the head, the kid deserved it.And speaking of unruly kids, this might be one of the first movies to begin addressing the issue of 'never say no' to them, the fallout of which we're living with today in the form of 'safe spaces' on college campuses and amnesty from the unimaginable horrors of real life. It makes me wonder how my generation managed to grow up normal. But I guess normal is kind of relative, as long as you have the right kind of relatives.Which apparently, the Hobbses did not. For a family picture, son-in-law Stan (Josh Peine) took it on the lam pretty quickly after arriving at the beach house. I didn't register much of a connection between married daughter Janie (Lili Gentle) and her husband Byron (John Saxon) either, so the family bonding duties fell to Roger and son Danny (Michael Burns), which was actually kind of touching following the frightening lost at sea sequence.And who should show up for the teenage gals in the audience but era heart throb Fabian as the hip teen Joe Carmody. You know it's funny, I was a teenager in the mid-Sixties myself, and never ran across Fabian in any venue until well past his prime. I have no idea how that could be but that's the story. I had to laugh when he gave the Bobby Darin album to Katey (Lauri Peters) as a going away present; couldn't the film makers have thrown him a bone and come up with a Fabian record?With the benefit of age and hindsight, this picture has a lot to offer for us older movie viewers, but the best was near the end of the story when Stan, who got a job and reconciled with his wife, used the word 'stoned' to describe the episode with Mr. Turner (John McGiver) over the bathroom fiasco. As best as my memory can serve, 1962 might have been right at the cusp of that word transitioning to refer to pot smokers. Who knows what it might mean in another decade or so?

jjnxn-1 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.

Spikeopath 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