Mon 1 Apr 2013
A Made-for-TV Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION (1967).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[11] Comments
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION. Made for TV. Universal/NBC-TV; telecast 07 Jan 1967. Robert Wagner, Jill St. John, Peter Lawford, Lola Albright, Walter Pidgeon, Michael Ansara. Teleplay: Gene R. Kearney; director: William Hale.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation is a splashy, colorful and cheerfully cheesy made-for-TV exercise in adolescent paranoia that landed right on the cusp of my teenage years. As such, it will always keep a place in my heart, if not on any 10 Best list.
Robert Wagner, in his last “juvenile†part, stars as a college drop-out, just out of the Army and bumming around Europe, who runs into wealthy former school-mate Jill St. John and gets invited to spend the Summer cruising the Mediterranean on her Daddy’s yacht. It quickly develops that Jill’s parents (Peter Lawford and Lola Albright) disapprove of Robert, and the cause of this parental censure surfaces just as quickly: he’s gauche. Not a lovable klutz or an alienated loner, just awkward and sophomoric — the kiss of déclassé.
Assuming that you weren’t a high school prom queen or captain of the football team, perhaps you can relate to the feeling. I know I could. Which is where Vacation takes its cue and proceeds to run the table with it. Faced with Lawford/Albright’s constant belittling — and flummoxed by the ease with which they do it — Wagner decides on a puerile revenge; he begins gathering evidence of what he thinks are Lawford’s criminal activities.
What follows borders on a teenage dream, as our hero skulks nimbly about, snapping a photo here, jotting down a detail there, keeping one step ahead of his quarry and jotting it all down in a notebook labeled “How I Spent my Summer Vacation.†Even better, as the fantasy proceeds to its climax, writer Gene Kearney (whose talents seem confined to the small screen for his whole career) keeps spinning it further and further out, in true dream-fashion as we get shifting realities, dark plots, mysterious fortress hide-outs and the whole thing related in flashback to a super-villain (Walter Pidgeon) who seems unsettlingly fatherly — the perfect touch for a tale of adolescent angst —leading to a conclusion that… well to say any more would spoil it.
Don’t take this Vacation expecting artistry, but if you have any feeling for that turbulent rebel mood of the 60s you may find this one a lot of fun.
Editorial Comment: This film has been reviewed once before on this blog, the earlier occasion by David L. Vineyard. (Follow the link.)
April 2nd, 2013 at 8:19 am
I remember this one. It led the next year to Wagner’s starring TV role in IT TAKES A THIEF.
April 2nd, 2013 at 10:39 am
I remember this too. Something about Wagner’s character saying that his only talent is holding his breath for an extended period? I haven’t seen this since it was first on but I still remember it – I was just wondering the other day why it wasn’t on DVD.
April 2nd, 2013 at 12:02 pm
I loved HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION when I first saw it back in the Sixties. Stan’s right about Wagner’s character being able to hold his breath (it’s an important plot point).
April 2nd, 2013 at 1:40 pm
This is a longer list of people who remember this movie than I expected. I don’t recall watching it myself, but Dan, you make it sound like a lot of fun. I’ve never been a big fan of Robert Wagner, but I’m obviously in the minority. He’s been very popular for a long time, and he’s still active on the small screen. (He plays agent Tony DiNozzo’s father every so often on NCIS.)
April 2nd, 2013 at 2:57 pm
I Liked ‘It takes a Thief’, Al Mundy .
The Doc
April 2nd, 2013 at 4:54 pm
While I am unable to vouch for its veracity, Wagner wrote an autobiography of great personal charm “Pieces Of My Heart”. The parts about “Old Hollywood” I found to be wonderful. Unfortunately, I got it from the library and I don’t remember what he may have said about this TV movie…
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:22 pm
Reading this post and the other one, I’m wondering why nobody has mentioned yet that twenty-odd years after making this pic, Robert Wagner and Jill St.John did get married in real life, and remain so to this day.
I mean, that’s the first thing most people would notice about it – now, anyway …
April 3rd, 2013 at 5:32 pm
Robert Wagner’s autobiography has an extraordinary reproduced photo of an actual Hollywood ballet class for young girls.
Among the seven or eight little girls–maybe seven to eleven or so–are Wagner’s wives Natalie Wood and Jill St. John.
One of the other young girls is Stephanie Powers who played Wagner’s wife in HART TO HART.
What an odd coincidence…
July 24th, 2013 at 12:27 am
I remember the Movie “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” clearly and really enjoyed it. I have been looking for it for years under a slightly different Title. The real question is, where or how do I find a DVD or VCR copy, now.
July 24th, 2013 at 8:54 am
Try http://www.iOffer.com. It’s the best online source I know of for out-of-print and collector-to-collector DVDs.
August 15th, 2013 at 8:35 am
Man do I remember that movie, Peter and Lola reminded me of my own parents. My favorite line was something like, “…all I could do was hold my breath longer than anyone else…”. I could relate, seems in those days everyone smoked, except me. Came in handy though.