Having Wonderful Time (1938)

(On Cable TV, May 2022) Oh sure, you can go watch Having Wonderful Time, lured in by a cast that features pre-stardom Lucille Ball and Red Skelton (doing a skit about dunking donuts) supporting well-known 1930s figures such as Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. You can even be taken in by the film’s cozy setting of a mountain vacation camp, with people relaxing enough that romance blooms. But even the cast and environment can’t save the film from one fundamental flaw – it’s rather dull. Well, “mediocre” would be a better word – an undistinguishable summer-camp romance with bits of humour thrown in. Not bad (although some will find Skelton insufferable), but not really remarkable either – Rogers is nice but bland, and that applies double for Fairbanks. Even Ball is far from her later screen persona. Reading about the film reveals that it’s based on a play that took place at a Catskill resort with a largely Jewish cast of characters and – aaaah, that version of the film (even if impossible to shoot due to the censorship standards of the time) could have been much, much more interesting to watch. What we have instead is a white bread film equivalent: blandly bland stuff that’s not unpleasant, but leaves little impression.