It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I always watch this movie when I can. There's so many perfect situations in it.Most of the reviews have gone over the family dynamic involved. People nowadays don't know the significance of ground breaking movies in those days. This movie may have been the first glimpse of a reunited family that didn't step out of a Norman Rockwell painting. They have real life problems with finances, fidelity and maintaining a cohesive family unit.There are some perfectly defined moments in the film. Hobbs marveling at a 50 year old light bulb, or the maid quitting because she misunderstood him when he said he was going to get "some sun on the beach".The one scene that chokes me up every time is when Stewart shows O'Hara the $5 bill that Fabian returned to him after the dance.

* Thanks to this wonderful movie Elvis-wannabe pop singer Fabian will never be forgotten. He drew many kids to this great Saturday matinee movie in that pre-British invasion golden age of teen idol singers era.

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!

Stewart takes his family to the beach house; complications and hilarity ensue. This is a mildly amusing family comedy that plays like a sitcom. Stewart makes the most of his role while O'Hara is lovely as his understanding wife. Pop singer and teen heartthrob Fabian, inexplicably sporting facial whiskers, woos one of Stewart's daughters. In 1962, the year this film was released, Stewart starred in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and McGiver, who plays an unwelcome guest at the beach house here, appeared in "The Manchurian Candidate," arguably the two best films of the year. Unfortunately, none of the magic from those two films rubs off on this lame comedy.