Clean-cut suburban clan, steadily splintering due to outside interests, grows closer during a summer at the beach after Pop rents a ramshackle manor on the shoreline. James Stewart and Maureen O'Hara are a nice (if curiously low-keyed) marital match in this featherweight diversion for families, adapted from Edward Streeter's book by the esteemed Nunnally Johnson. There aren't many big laughs, but a teenage dance sequence (with Stewart paying boys five dollars each to dance with his daughter) is played very well, and a bit of slapstick near the end (involving Stewart locked in a bathroom with a tippling nude woman) is silly but lively. O'Hara was getting to be rather ubiquitous during this era, always playing hot-tempered wifeys; here she's softer and more subdued, and this appears to have an affect on Stewart, reigning-in his tics and mannerisms. The kids are tolerable, but the grown-ups are the reason to watch. ** from ****
Review of Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation
