Mon 10 Apr 2023
A TV-Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION (1967).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[12] Comments
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION. Universal TV / NBC; made for TV, 1967.) Robert Wagner, Peter Lawford, Lola Albright, Walter Pidgeon, Jill St. John, Michael Ansara, and Len Lesser. Written by Gene Kearney. Directed by William Hale.
This has an adolescent appeal I find irresistible, tinged with Man from UNCLE gimmickry, and a “This Week’s Guest Star†cast.
Robert Wagner, pushing 40 and still exuding boyish charm, plays Jack Washington, all-American bad-luck-boy, who starts the show by falling into the clutches of arch-villain Walter Pidgeon — these were the days when arch-villains plotted in tacky resplendence, amid blinking switchboards and uniformed stuntmen who specialized in falling down — and then flashing back to the series of bad choices that got him where he is today.
Wavy images, harp music…. and we’re somewhere on The Continent, or maybe the Universal back lot, where Jack, fresh out of the Army and bumming around, chance-encounters an old girlfriend (Jill St John) who invites him to spend a week on the Family Yacht with Mummy and Daddy (Lola Albright and Peter Lawford.)
Which unravels quickly. Mummy has an unbreakable veneer of politeness, Jill looks to Jack for diversion, but Daddy doesn’t like him because… well there are any number of reasons, all centered around Jack being gauche, untalented, and not terribly bright… in short, a Loser. And Daddy shows what he thinks of losers, in a series of calculated humiliations that leave our hero looking foolish and insignificant – in short, like a teenager.
And as in a teenage fantasy, Jack soon discovers that the man belittling him is evil. Objectively evil: a crook or smuggler of some sort, as well as a liar and a cheat. And here comes the adolescent appeal, because Jack sets out to bring down Lawford, armed with little more than a camera and notebook.
The result is a messy thing, but firmly planted in the post-childhood-but-not-quite-grown-up swamp of youth. And it blossoms into gaudy fireworks entirely appropriate to that age range.
Don’t let my affection for this silly trifle over-sell you; I’m not saying Vacation is actually any good – just that it once appealed to my pulp-fiction mind, and I remember it fondly.
April 10th, 2023 at 5:23 pm
David Vineyard also reviewed this early made-for-TV movie here on this blog almost 14 years ago now. Here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1210
April 10th, 2023 at 7:23 pm
Dan pretty much sums up my feelings for this goofy entertaining romp that works better than it should especially with that sparkling cast.
There is a novel by SF writer John Brunner believe it or not, much darker and barely related, but none the less the basis for the film. WEAR THE BUTCHERS MEDAL is about the hero stumbling across Neo Nazis in then contemporary Europe but served as the basis for the movie.
April 10th, 2023 at 9:20 pm
Here’s a link to David’s review of WEAR THE BUTCHER’S MEDAL:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=44480
Well worth reading.
April 11th, 2023 at 1:44 am
I keep hoping COMPANIONS IN NIGHTMARE will surface someday, but so far No Luck.
April 11th, 2023 at 8:17 am
My family watched this in 1967.
It was very highly publicized, as that new thing, a made for TV movie.
My mother was outraged by the nonending.
Nothing was explained.
She cited this ever afterwards as Bad Plotting.
Who knows what I’d think today.
April 11th, 2023 at 9:08 am
I actually remember watching this when it first came out.
Also, Robert Wagner (93) and Jill St. John (82) have been “together” since 1982 and married since 1990. They met in 1959.
April 11th, 2023 at 10:27 am
Sadly I can no longer see Robert Wagner without visualizing the scene on the yacht where drunk Natalie Wood catches Christopher Walken and RW in flagrante delicto, then toppling off the side in a pique, to her drowned end. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303569/amp/Did-Hollywood-star-Natalie-Wood-walk-husband-Robert-Wagner-Christopher-Walken-having-sex-night-drowned.html
April 11th, 2023 at 11:43 am
Tony,
I seem to be the only person in the Free World who didn’t see the scene personally, and/or doesn’t know the actual witnesses well enough to know for sure if their accounts are credible.
April 11th, 2023 at 12:03 pm
Dan,
I ain’t saying it’s true. Just saying I see it in my mind’s eye. Like a home movie. You have to admit, fiction or not, it’s pretty vivid. It’s like when I tell you “don’t think of an elephant” you think of an elephant. You didn’t before but now you do. The theater of my mind also has showings of OJ catching his wife and her boyfriend in flagrante delicto and having a rather different response. But of course we know that this story has reasonable doubt as to it’s veracity as well. I can also see all of the stories told in Hollywood Babylon–regardless of their truth.
April 11th, 2023 at 2:57 pm
I also can’t speak towards the Wood tragedy. Too convoluted, too intricate –I wouldn’t try to make sense of it. I just feel it was a very sad thing.
Everyone involved were wonderful entertainers whom I enjoyed in many performances. I’d hate to learn that there was any wrongdoing.
Oh well. This particular Robert Wagner TV-movie sounds hilarious. I appreciate the recommendation.
Gentle, pastoral Walter Pidgeon clomping around a high-tech lair as a diabolical, Blofeld-style super-villain? I’d surely relish seeing this. What a hoot.
April 11th, 2023 at 4:16 pm
Most of the people I know are acquainted with RJ Wagner and speak highly of him. None were on board when the tragedy occurred.
April 11th, 2023 at 5:27 pm
While I have the same picture in my mind that Tony does, it is unlikely that we will ever know what really happened, except a huge tragedy. I’ll follow your lead on this one, Barry.