Having Wonderful Time (1938) User Reviews

Fun and love in the Catskills

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 21 November 2006]

Ginger Rogers is Thelma, a secretary seeking rest and relaxation at a Catskill resort in "Having Wonderful Time," also starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Lee Bowman, Eve Arden, Jack Carson, Lucille Ball and Michael (Red) Skelton. Uptight Rogers arrives at the resort and gets off on the wrong foot with Chick, a law student working as a waiter (Fairbanks). Eventually they discover they really like each other, but when Thelma expects a proposal from Chick, she gets a proposition instead and blows her stack. On the rebound, she picks up with fast Buzzy (Bowman), who's been staked out by Miriam (Ball). Complications arise.

"Having Wonderful Time" is light entertainment that has nothing special about it except its talented young cast. Rogers is fine as the more serious, less flirtatious woman in a group of love-mad girls. Fairbanks is fantastic, using a completely different persona from other films – he sports an American accent and comes across as a brusque handsome hunk rather than a British gentleman. Eve Arden's New York accent is over the top but she's funny as a resort guest, and comedy and slapstick are provided by pretty Lucille Ball and Red Skelton, who gets to do a couple of comedy routines.

All in all good fun from RKO and recommended.

The Jewish Alps Go Goy

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 25 March 2010]

Arthur Kober's play Having Wonderful Time was fresh from its Broadway run of 372 performances for 1937-38 when RKO bought it to the screen starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Ginger Rogers. The play was a homage to the Catskill resort area so frequented by New York's Jewish population because of restrictions on other vacation areas. The area with its own Jewish owned and operated resorts became popularly known as the Jewish Alps.

On Broadway John Garfield and Katharine Locke starred, but for the screen RKO used two of its best contract players of the time Fairbanks and Rogers. According to Salad Days the memoir of Fairbanks, both he and Rogers did use proper Brooklyn and Bronx accents in their characters, but after the audiences in Red State America had trouble understanding them, both he and Ginger were called back and dubbed a whole lot of their lines in more generic tones.

By the way Fairbanks could and did use a really good New York type accent in Angels On Broadway a few years later.

A whole lot of outstanding character players are in Having Wonderful Time like Eve Arden, Donald Meek, Lee Bowman, Jack Carson, and Lucille Ball. Making his screen debut as the camp social director where we got to see some of his Catskill type shtick was Red Skelton.

Having Wonderful Time is a good screen comedy, showing off Fairbanks and Rogers to their best advantage. But I would probably have liked to have seen the film done as it was presented on Broadway. The days of the great Jewish resorts of the Catskills are gone now so it's highly unlikely we'll see a remake of Having Wonderful Time. An opportunity to have preserved a piece of history is now gone unfortunately.

Limp comedy lacks whatever luster it had as a Broadway play...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 9 November 2006]

If the pleasure of watching GINGER ROGERS, DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR. and LEE BOWMAN in their prime is enough for you, you won't mind watching this feeble little comedy about a vacationing girl in a typical girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl wins boy kind of affair.

And whatever laughs come along are few and far between, as someone else suggested, and the gags aren't fresh enough to sustain much interest. The backgammon scene becomes a bore, as does the party scene with "Heigh Ho" being sung non-stop in inebriated fashion.

Strictly a small time trifle, hardly worth bothering about. No one is seen to their advantage except for the three photogenic leads in a cast that includes EVE ARDEN (wasted), LUCILLE BALL (wasted), JACK Carson (wasted), DONALD COOK and GRADY SUTTON, with an interesting debut of comedian RED SKELTON, billed as Richard (Red) Skelton) who demonstrates his skill with a series of pratfalls. He does more with his small role than anyone else is able to muster.

The original play was a satire about Jewish vacationers in the Catskills but was revamped as a vehicle for Ginger Rogers with all the Jewish jokes removed. What's left is a weak comedy with nowhere to go.

Summing up: The title is a misnomer. It's hardly worth anyone's time but it's pleasing to note that LEE BOWMAN's reaction shots reveal a flair for comedy never fully realized throughout his film career.

Ginger on Vacation

[JLRMovieReviews · 7/10 · 13 April 2009]

Ginger Rogers, working girl and typist, decides to forget her worries and take two weeks at Camp Kare-Free, a lodge that promotes rest and relaxation. She gets there and Camp Kare-Free is anything but. While this movie seems to be going and getting nowhere, it's the constant presence of young Hollywood that keeps the viewer intrigued as to who's going to pop up next. As always Eve Arden manages to stand out in all the recognizable faces, and one can even spot an unbilled Ann Miller in the crowd. Red Skelton provides much of the humor in some very funny skits. One may leave this movie thinking there wasn't much to it, but the movie does succeed in making the viewer feel they're on vacation, with some nice shots of the Catskills and with realistic dialogue between the waiters and escorts of the lodge. Ginger's scenes with her love interest, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. come off very laid back, once they start to like each other, of course. You could do a lot worse (and maybe better,) but for 70 minutes of escapism with Ginger Rogers, who's complaining?

Timeless Romance

[mjs-96489 · 7/10 · 7 November 2021]

This is a great timeless romantic story. Hollywood should remake this movie! One interesting point, is that the movie ends abruptly at the camp and many of the "dating" themes should have been more deeply explored in the script.

That said, a star studded cast of 1938 with many of the great stars in their early part of their careers. A wonderful, heart warming moving about falling in love.

The food here is unbearable! I just had to return my liver!

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 20 August 2009]

***Slight Spoilers*** Things got really wild at Camp Kare-Free in the Catskills when pretty and conceited Thelma "Teddy" Shaw, Ginger Rogers, arrived there to spend, from her boring job as a typist in the big city, her two week summer vacation. Outside her work environment, typing typing typing, Teddy always tried to put on an act in being extremely well read, by carrying a book on the works of 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, and talking in the lingo of a rich and well bread Park Avenue débutante. The fact is that Teddy is just a working girl from the Bronx helping her family, whom she lives with, make ends meet in the depths of the Great Depression.

It's at Camp Kare-Free that Teddy will not only get a new outlook on life as well as personal relationships but also find the man of her dreams; out of work lawyer and now camp waiter Chick Kirkland, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. At first Teddy wasn't all that crazy about Chick after he accidentally dumped all her clothes, when Teddy's suitcase unlatched, all over the ground and then gave her a piece of his mind when she tried to show him how sophisticated she was. It didn't take to long for Chick, with his boyish charm and striking good looks, to get Teddy to see things his way and fall for him like a ton of red ripe New York Delicious Apples.

It's when Chick got a little overconfident in his being a lady killer that Teddy, who's never been exposed to a dreamboat Romeo like him, made a B-line to the camp dance hall before he swept her off her feet. It's there that Teddy met rich and spoiled Buzzy-or Buzz to his friends-Armbuster, Lee Bowman, whom she later got involved in a harmless night long game of backgammon at his cabin. This had Buzz's girlfriend at Camp Kare-Free Miriam, Lucille Ball, not only get jealous in Buzz dropping her for another girl but doing it behind her back: without even bothering to write her a Dear Joan letter!

The film ends, together with Teddy's two week vacation, at the Camp Kare-Free dinning room where Teddy's old boyfriend Emil Batty, Jack Carson, unexpectedly show up to give Teddy a ride home to the Bronx! It's then that all the pent up tension between Teddy Chick as well as Mariam reach critical mass. Chick, who's waiting on Teddy and Emil, is made to look like a jerk when Emil treats him as if he just got off the boat, as an illegal alien, from Timbuktu. It's when Buzz, who earlier almost got his skull cracked by a flying rock, shows up for breakfast that a mad as hell Mariam, who threw the rock, confronts him about being unfaithful to her. It's then that a shocked and humiliated Chick learns, from Mariam, that Buzz spent the entire night with his girl Teddy at his private cabin!

The hilarious free for all, with fists cups and dishes flying in all directions, at the conclusion of the film gives it just the right amount of action that was lacking, with all the talk talk talk, in it up until that point. It also finally brought both Chick and Teddy back together in them knowing that despite not being financially ready, with Chick out of a job, to get married and start a family that's, by falling in love, the only and logically thing for them to do.

P.S The movie "Having a Wonderful Time" was Red Skelton's first film appearance as the camp's goofy social director Itchy Faulkner. We get to see Red do his thing in demonstrating how to properly dunk a donut into a cup of coffee without spilling the contents all over ourselves.

Very friendly...with an eager-to-please cast

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 25 March 2010]

Bronx stenographer leaves the typing pool for two weeks in the country at a camp for single adults (presumably the Catskills, though any ethnic division has been tidily scrubbed from the scenario). Arthur Kober adapted his own successful play for the screen, keeping the patter between the guests and the staff coming fast and loose. Ginger Rogers at first appears to be playing a lovely blonde killjoy, and the lack of humor in her snippy characterization is a bit disconcerting (although it certainly explains why she's unattached); she's even rude to law student/waiter Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who should have women fawning all over him yet curiously does not. Douglas manages to thaw Ginger out in time, however a childish fight between the two sends her to another man's cabin on Party Night. Not much of a plot--this works much better as a comedic study of character circa 1938. Ginger's mother worries her daughter will become an old maid (!), while Fairbanks seems to embody the handsome but unmotivated loaf-off. Richard (Red) Skelton plays social director, while Lucille Ball and Eve Arden are two of Rogers' cabin-mates. Breezy, innocuous fun for star-watchers. **1/2 from ****

Summer Holiday

[lugonian · 5/10 · 23 April 2017]

HAVING WONDERFUL TIME (RKO Radio, 1938), directed by Alfred Santell, is a Ginger Rogers starring comedy produced towards the end to her great popularity years (1933-1939) of those nine song and dance musicals produced by RKO opposite her most famous screen partner of all time, Fred Astaire. Although reportedly a comedy adapted from the 1937 stage success by Arthur Kober, that success didn't seem to be repeated on screen due to changes and alterations, thus, resulting to a somewhat disappointing production made plausible mostly by Ginger Rogers and her STAGE DOOR (RKO Radio, 1937) co-stars of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Jack Carson, Grady  Sutton making return engagements. There's also a very young comic named Richard Skelton, better known as "Red" Skelton, making his motion picture debut.  

Following a visual view of New York City, the story introduces Teddy Shaw (Ginger Rogers), a stenographer working in a crowded office surrounded by other girl, over-viewed by a strict supervisor (Elsie Cavanna).  It's also her last day at work before her trip to the Catskills mountains where she's to vacation for the next two weeks at Camp Kare-Free to "relax in the peace and quiet of the pines." Following a subway ride to her apartment in the Bronx where she's surrounded by family members consisting of her parents (Harlan Briggs and Leona Roberts), sister (Inez Courtney), her brother-in-law (Dean Jagger) and their daughter (Juanita Quigley), Teddy, the only single girl in the family, resents the annoyance of her nagging family to marry Emil Beatty (Jack Carson), a successful but obnoxious businessman whom she does not love. Upon her train arrival to the mountains, Teddy's vacation comes to a bad start leading to constant quarrels with Chick Kirkland (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), a young man whose ambition to become a lawyer by earning extra money as both waiter and bus driver. Chick resents the ill treatment from customers who feel they are always right, while Teddy resents Chick's temperamental treatment towards her. Eventually Teddy and Chick come to terms until a misunderstanding and rumors of Teddy spending the entire night in a cabin with Miriam's (Lucille Ball) beau, "Buzzy" Armbruster (Lee Bowman), puts further friction in their brief relationship. Other members of the large list of cast credits include: Peggy Conklin (Fay Coleman, Teddy's friend); Eve Arden (Henrietta); Dorothea Kent (Maxine); Donald Meek (P.U. Rogers, manager of the resort); Allan Lane ("Mac"); Clarence Wilson, among others.

Red Skelton, who would later win fame and popularity in musical-comedies for MGM in the 1940s, and later on his television variety show, plays a comical social director who manages to throw in some of his comic routines for good measure, ranging from his method of dunking donuts to climbing up and down the stairs. Although funny to the guests and workers at the resort, Skelton's routines just don't appear to register well as they formerly did to contemporary viewers. Future television personalities as Lucille Ball and Eve Arden are almost unidentifiable, especially when speaking in strong Bronx accents, and Eve wearing horn-rim glasses.

For a Ginger Rogers solo effort, which are usually clocked anywhere between 80 to 90 minutes, HAVING WONDERFUL TIME is relatively short (70 minutes), playing more like a second feature presentation rather than a major "A" comedy. Its a wonder how much was deleted considering the fact that actress/dancer Ann Miller's name comes after Red Skelton's in some theatrical lobby cards, yet her character role of Vivian doesn't appear to be seen anywhere in the finished product. There are songs, including "My First Impression of You" (sung by Betty Jane Rhodes) and "Nighty Night" by Charles Tobias, Sammy Stept and Bill Livingston, which are easily forgettable. Considering the locale of Camp Kare- Free, it's a wonder how this production might have turned out had it been a Fred and Ginger musical/comedy instead, retaining its CAREFREE title already used for their other 1938 musical consisting an entirely different plot altogether.

As much as Rogers worked so well with Astaire, and other leading men of her day, including Dick Powell, James Stewart or George Brent, for some reason, she doesn't register well with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who seems out of place here. Possibly newer RKO Radio performers as James Ellison or Lee Bowman might have been better suited, although their names were hardly those to draw a large theater crowds. The major weakness to HAVING WONDERFUL TIME is the revised treatment by its author probably due to certain scenes that couldn't be used for the screen version due to the production code. The story starts off well, but once it set at Camp Karefree, it becomes weak, especially the typically love-hate relationship between Rogers and Fairbanks, followed by Rogers endlessly playing backgammon as the guests in another cabin are heard repeatedly singing "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho," that grows tiresome after awhile.

Formerly available on video cassette in the 1980s accompanied by a second Ginger Rogers feature, CARNIVAL BOAT (1932) on the same tape, HAVING WONDERFIL TIME did show up regularly on American Movie Classics prior to 2001, and occasionally turns up from time to time on Turner Classic Movies. As much as the movie fails to have its wonderful time with its quota of big laughs, the casting of future TV personalities as Lucille Ball, Eve Arden or Red Skelton early in their careers would be sole reasons for viewing this light comedy today. (**1/2)

For Ginger Rogers fans, others can skip it

[silarpac · 6/10 · 2 June 2022]

Not much of a story or script but Rogers and Fairbanks make a good romantic couple. Supporting cast with Eve Arden, Lucy, Jack Carson, and others do a good job with slight material. If you like Red Skelton he does several of his skits. Ginger does her good girl thing which is standard for her. Fairbanks is good too but the film as a whole is pretty weak. This film was a vehicle for the stars.

Very difficult to finish watching...this is simply a bad film from Hollywood's otherwise golden age.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 3 May 2007]

This is a poor film for so many, many reasons and I was shocked to see SOME reviewers who gave it a 10! Do they seriously think this film is as good or better than CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA or ORDINARY PEOPLE? Yes, it's fine if you liked the film, but to give it a 10 sets up some amazingly high expectations and I really think this film, on a generous day, MIGHT earn a 5, as it was very poorly written, the acting and accents were at times terrible and the romance completely hokey and clichéd.

A big part of the problem was that the film was set at a "Borscht Belt" resort in the Catskills, but it was so sanitized that it gave a superficial view at best. Let me explain with a little bit of background. In the first half (or more) of the 20th century, many Jewish families went to these mountain resorts for vacations--partly for the fun and partly because, unfortunately, Jews were made to feel unwelcome at all the other resorts (some even banned Jews and other "undesireables"). These Borscht Belt resorts featured hiking, camping, canoing as well as lots of entertainment by Jewish performers who would later go on to stardom as comedians--such as Milton Berle, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Morey Amsterdam and Rodney Dangerfield (among MANY others). While I was NOT hoping to see over the top Jewish accents and overly stereotyped images, this film featured Ginger Rogers in the lead (one of the least Jewish-looking actresses of the time) and some bizarre Jewish-like accents that frankly were ridiculous (particularly Eve Arden's). The overall effect only bears a vague resemblance to the Borscht Belt--the way that Amos and Andy bore a resemblance to Black America (especially the radio version of the show)! Why not instead use more Jewish actors and have them just be themselves? Perhaps Hollywood thought Americans at the time would not accept this, so they created a bland and Wasp-y version with only a token Jew that might be more acceptable to the common person.

Regardless of the sanitized nature of the film, the romance and acting were poor and clichéd. When Ginger met handsome Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., you KNEW exactly where the film would go and their antics became pretty annoying. In fact, the film itself was loud, obnoxious and about as subtle as a 2x4 upside your head! Plus, male camp workers uttering lines such as "what a pack of dogs" as the female vacationers got off the buses was rather awful because it was meant to be funny. Aside from a few scenes from Red Skelton which some might find funny (I didn't), the film was neither funny nor romantic--clearly a misfire.

funny and cute

[timmauk · 10/10 · 21 December 2000]

The original movie script was about a Jewish girl on holiday in the Catskills. They put Ginger Rodgers in it and changed it around a bit. This is a cute and funny movie. Nothing major, just a nice little movie about a working girl away for some R&R and ending up falling in love. Her love interest is Douglas Fairbanks Jr, who is a babe, and very funny in his own right. They both meet at camp and instantly dislike one another. He is working there as a waiter/camp counselor/gigolo (see Patrick Swayze's part in Dirty Dancing) to earn money to pay for school. From the first moment they meet, you can tell that even through all the fighting and cutdowns they really like one another. Neither of them has the courage to say how they really feel to the other. Of course finally they do and it all happens naturally. You believe this movie and the characters in it. To me that means a good movie. Thank goodness I taped it off AMC. This movie includes alot of talents, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Jack Carson, to include a few. You can't get alot of Ginger's non-musical films on VHS or DVD. This ticks me off people.

PS...If you like to see more of Ginger Rodgers non-musical greats, check out Tom, Dick and Harry, Kitty Foyle, and the classic Stage Door.

You probably have to see the play

[vert001 · 6/10 · 30 April 2016]

My impression is that the original play of HAVING WONDERFUL TIME was something along the lines of Woody Allen's RADIO DAYS. Assuming that it had been funny, nearly all the humor left with the ethnicity and what was left is quite a disappointment, maybe the least movie that Ginger Rogers made between, oh, 1933 and 1949, which must cover around 50 films.

When I first saw it I wondered what had happened with the obvious dialogue looping. Fairbanks reports that he and Rogers had been called back to the studio to re-dub their lines, dropping their respective Brooklyn and Bronx accents. Thus the New York setting also is largely removed from the finished product (Jack Carson, Lucille Ball and Eve Arden retain New York accents that do not strike my ear as particularly accurate. One guesses that Fairbanks and Rogers had been more successful).

I'm not sure if the characters were originally so unpleasant on the stage. Rogers' 'Teddy' was awfully touchy and even snooty, and Fairbanks was downright cruel to that poor little blonde who asked him for a dance. Surely there was some attention paid to the supporting characters on Broadway that was cut out of the film, which runs only 71 minutes as it stands, leaving its proceedings quite threadbare. It seems that Teddy is interested in educating herself (Schopenhauer's Essays and some relatively formal grammar when she speaks) but all that really comes across is that the girl has a chip on her shoulder. You could say pretty much the same for Fairbanks, and no one else gets any serious screen time with which to develop their characters.

On the plus side, Rogers and Fairbanks do have good screen chemistry, and Ginger manages to make a backgammon game the funniest thing in the movie. Fans of Red Skelton will appreciate his first film appearance; alas, I'm not really one of them. And Big Bear Lake serves as a nice substitute for the Catskills, but other than that there isn't very much. I fear I may be a bit generous in giving it a 6/10.

similar plot as all the Rogers/Astair matchups

[ksf-2 · 3/10 · 30 April 2007]

A cavalcade of stars - Ginger Rogers, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden (all together in Stage Door) This has Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Jack Carson, Donald Meek, Alan Lane (voice of Mr. Ed), Red Skelton, Grady Sutton (made all those W.C. Fields movies). As others have noted, movie lost a lot in translation from the original play, which would be politically incorrect these days. This show has Ginger Rogers in the same formula plot from the Fred Astaire movies, where boy meets girl, girl acts spoiled and insulted, and boy spends remainder of movie trying to make it up to girl. Unfortunately, the script and interaction between actors just isn't up to the par of those Fred Astair films, but it IS interesting to see all those actors in their early years.

historical celluloid

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 3 September 2020]

Office typist Teddy Shaw (Ginger Rogers) is tired of work, the city, and her family. She decides to leave New York City, and follow her friend to vacation at Camp Kare-Free in the Catskills. She's not happy initially with the men and the crowded room until she encounters waiter Chick Kirkland (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.).

Both Rogers and Fairbanks are playing pissed off characters. They fit together in this world but I'm not that invested in their relationship. The other notable aspect is that two future comedic stars are playing big side roles. Lucille Ball plays the sassy Miriam. I actually like her acting. She would have been great to sass up the best friend character. The other is Red Skelton. It's his debut and he plays the prankster Itchy. I don't like Itchy that much. He's doing a look-at-me-and-laugh-at-my-jokes performance. I hate to be sacrilegious but I didn't enjoy the donut skit. More than anything, this is interesting as a piece of historical celluloid.

Goyishe

[marcslope · 6/10 · 12 January 2024]

A hit Broadway play, adapted by the playwright (and later turned into a hit musical); what more could you ask for? Well, for starters, you could ask that the premise, a love story set at the very predominantly Jewish summer camps that thrived in the Catskills from the 1920s into the 1970s, not have virtually every trace of Jewishness removed from it. We have one Jewish waiter here, and possibly a couple of older Jewish campers, and from there it's on to Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Peggy Conklin, Lucille Ball, Lee Bowman, Eve Arden, and a very young, very annoying Red Skelton, whose two extended comedy routines land with a thud. That Rogers would even be living with her large family in that section of the Bronx strains credibility. They're pretty people, the summer-camp setting is pretty and convincing, and for a post-Code item, it's pretty frank about the sleeping-around that's going on, or at least suspected. Lucille, being built up by RKO, has some funny moments, and Eve, playing the "intellectual" camper (we can tell she's intellectual because she wears glasses), makes a great deal out of little. At a little over an hour, it speeds by, and Rogers, playing a not-very-nice heroine, at least is photographed lovingly. But the goy-izing of it kind of deprives it of any point.

Summer School's Out

[Lejink · 2/10 · 6 November 2023]

You've got to think there's something a-missing from this film and not just in the title. At the end, I realised what it was - the lack of a decent script. By the slip of my finger I accidentally clicked on this Ginger Rogers movie when in fact I was intending to watch "Top Hat". As Julia once said many years later, "Big mistake!"

At barely 70 minutes long, directed by a director unknown to me, it's a lame summer-camp movie with Rogers and her leading-man Douglas Fairbanks Jr having to act characters about ten years younger, as they play out a will they-won't they teen-romance while on vacation with a bunch of other like-minded kids who include the young Lucille Ball in their number.

The pair of them certainly look swell and interact well enough together but with material thinner than two-minute-old ice, this one flounders like Bambi on said ice from the very start. Yes, Ginger gets to dance, but not in any great solo or paired set-piece, there's no relieving Cole Porter or Irving Berlin soundtrack and worst of all there's the absolute unmitigated pain of enduring not one but two, I hesitate to call them comedy routines by Red Skelton each about as funny as a punch in the face.

I was ten minutes or so into this bore-fest when I realised this wasn't how I remembered "Top Hat" beginning and that Fred wasn't going to make an appearance.

Next time I'll be more careful with my cursor!

What a waste of great talent with a dull, hapless script

[SimonJack · 4/10 · 10 July 2021]

It's a real stretch to give this film four stars. Any film with such a cast of comedy players should be dynamite. Yet, "Having a Wonderful Time" is anything but. It's almost the opposite - a dud. There's just enough comedy and silliness provided by Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Red Skelton, Lee Bowman and Donald Meek - all combined, to make it barely bearable.

Ginger Rogers provides one spark of comedy as Teddy Shaw. Otherwise it's the others as Miriam, Henrietta, Itchy, Buzzy and P. O. Rogers who provide what little comedy there is. The art cover on the DVD I got of this movie shows Douglas Fairbanks Jr. And Ginger Rogers laughing up a storm. Someone must have told a joke on the set after filming. Fairbanks' character, Chick Kirkland is a drag.

There are others in this cast who generally provide good comedy in their films, but have no humor at all here. Jack Carson and Grady Sutton are two. This is one example of a weak or bad screenplay doing in a whole cast of otherwise very good entertainers. If I don't quit now, I'll talk myself in deducting another star or two from this poor film.

Red Skelton's Film Debut--with Ball and Arden Lending Support

[springfieldrental · 8/10 · 3 January 2024]

A few young Hollywood actors and actresses introduced to the public in the late 1930s years later made their mark in the emerging medium of television. In the July 1938 "Having A Wonderful Time," three performers, one whose it was his film debut, eventually gained lasting fame as TV personalities.

Comedian Richard Red Skelton, 25, displayed his talents for the first time on the screen in "Having A Wonderful Time," posing as a social camp director. Starring Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the comedy contains Skelton's skit he made famous on the stage, his description of 'Donut Dunkers.' Ginger plays Thelma 'Teddy' Shaw, a New York City typewriter pool worker who is coxed by her friend Fay (Peggy Conklin) to spend two weeks at an upper state New York camp for some adventure and relaxation. At the camp she meets employee Chick (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), a law student who's smitten with Teddy.

Skelton, whose father died two months before he was born, was a newspaper hawker at his hometown Vincennes, Indiana, at seven. A meeting with some theater comedians in the city three years later inspired Skelton to pursue performing in minstrel and showboat acts. He met his future wife when she won a marathon dance contest where Skelton was serving as an emcee. Edna Stillwell approached him after she won and remarked his jokes were terrible. Asked if she could do better, she took up the challenge and became a writer for a number of his jokes, including the 'Donut Dunkers' routine. Red gave his schtick before President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Capitol Theater in Washington D. C., where he was invited to perform at a White House luncheon. His act was so popular he became master of ceremonies for all of the president's birthday celebrations for years afterwards.

Lucille Ball is Miriam 'Screwball' in "Having A Wonderful Time," one of many films Ball appeared as secondary characters during the late 1930s. Ball finds herself as she did in 1937's "Stage Door" as a cabin mate to Rogers. The actress is more known today for her television show appearances, her first being with her husband Desi Arnaz in the series "I Love Lucy."

Eve Arden, playing Henrietta as another of Teddy's cabin mates, found herself in a similar position as Lucille Ball in the late 1930s in many supporting roles delivering her fast talking quick wit she established in 1937's "Stage Door." Arden plays a nerdy Bronx native in "A Wonderful Time." She later was Connie Brooks, a high school English teacher in the very popular television series "Our Miss Brooks." Lucy and Eve, friends since "Stage Door," saw Arnaz and Ball's company producing 'Our Miss Brooks.' Arden received the part after actress Shirley Booth, who later played Hazel in the namesake TV series, fail at the audition.

"Having A Wonderful Time" was adapted from the widely successful Arthur Kober play of the same name, which ran for 372 performances on Broadway. The popular play focused on New Yorkers who vacation in the Catskills, the so-called 'Borscht Belt.' Unfortunately for RKO, the Hays Office under Joseph Breen felt the Kober play had to be sanitized of all Jewish jokes that made his stage work so endearing to the public. Kober explained the censors felt "It was too much identified with the Bronx and the Jewish people might create misunderstanding, racial antagonism and all that. Thereupon, RKO very carefully explained that this angle would be entirely eliminated - that the picture would simply be about young people of the lower-middle class. So when I was called in to make the adaptation, the first thing I had to do was turn my Jewish characters into Gentiles."

Because of the changes, the movie flopped at the box office. But "Having A Wonderful Time" was monumental in Red Skelton's career, launching a successful radio show and 19 starring roles in film, and most notably, the long-running "The Red Skelton Show," broadcast on TV from 1951 until 1971. The highly-successful Broadway 1952 musical, 'Wish You Were Here,' was based on Kober's play, reinserting the original play's Jewish jokes and characters.

not so good

[raskimono · 5/10 · 16 July 2002]

Dull and uninvolving with scenes that play out too long. The basic premise of a secretary on vacation falling in love with a waiter at the lodge is interesting but is not explored to its full extent; and despite good performances, laughs are far between.

Totally miscast disappointment.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 8 January 2011]

Ginger Rogers plays a member of a typing pool who heads upstate to a Catskills resort in order to get away from crowded subways and pushy bosses. What does she get in return? A crowded resort filled with pushy New Yorkers! There, she immediately begins to squabble with one of the resort's employees (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) whom she, for no reason revealed, ends up in a romance with. There's nothing to explain why their initial antagonism ended, and no reason to explain why they are together anyway. This isn't like the screwball comedies where the romantic leads argue but their chemistry is obvious. From the moment the film starts, it's very clear that this film is overcrowded with the most obnoxious types of people you can shove onto a subway, and then into a resort. Not one of them are likable. The Broadway play this was based upon apparently centered around a Jewish resort, but other than a few hints of an accent here and there, these characters are obviously not Jewish. Rogers is reunited with her "Stage Door" co-stars Lucille Ball and Eve Arden (reciting a harsh Brooklyn accent), but their characters are not at all fleshed out. Red Skelton makes his film debut and has several amusing, if not outlandishly funny, routines, showing campers how to dunk their doughnuts properly, and demonstrating how various types go up and down the camp's stairs. This is a major disappointment considering all the talent involved.

Not a Wonderful Time

[topkapi56 · 2/10 · 6 May 2023]

Adapting the play into this movie sapped the fun out of it. Taking out the Jewish flavor took out all the fun right along with it. It has a good cast, but they have little to do. Fairbanks comes off better than Rogers and Ball does what she can with her underwritten role. The "romance" between the two leads is not believable for even a minute even though it was painfully predictable. Skelton seems to have wandered in from a different movie. He was amusing but that's about it. Pass this by. You won't miss much. I give it two stars just because you get to see Ball and Arden before they each hit it big on TV.

Well, the audience isn't having a wonderful time...

[guswhovian · 5/10 · 12 September 2020]

Poor city girl Teddy Shaw (Ginger Rogers) is desperate to leave New York City and go on vacation in the Catskills. However, her vacation proves more troublesome than she thought, as she falls in love with waiter Chick Kirkland (Douglas Fairbanks Jr).

Terribly dull comedy from RKO; I've never seen a better cast wasted in such a turgid film. Red Skelton makes his film debut doing two unfunny comedy sequences, while Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Eve Arden and Lucille Ball are wasted in their roles. Ginger does her best, while Jack Carson plays the secondary love interest yet again. There's a couple of good comedy scenes, mainly involving Lee Bowman.

And who though Douglas Fairbanks Jr looked like a waiter?

Waste of time but I watched the whole movie

[shobbs-86081 · 3/10 · 20 December 2023]

Unfortunately, previous negative reviews were absolutely spot-on for what was wrong with this movie, and I failed to heed the urgent warnings of doom. It IS probably the worst Ginger Rogers movie she ever made, so if you're watching for her, good luck on seeing anything of her dancing or coy come-hithering. And the script (if one can name a bunch of loosely connected catch phrases and a dead end plot a "script") is just non-existent. Red Skelton is really embarrassing, and the chance to see a young Lucille Ball is not sufficient to keep one's interest beyond her scenes. Finally, about halfway through, just as I was giving up on the movie and about to turn it off, Fairbanks and Rogers did a 180° turn from ugly, cantankerous, obnoxious fools into sweet lovers, so I stuck around to see the expected ending. It was not enough, but I did give it a 3 for the last half of the movie (would have been a "1" without the turnaround.)