Having Wonderful Time ** (1938, Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Peggy Conklin, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Eve Arden, Lee Bowman) – Classic Movie Review 11,892

Ginger Rogers in Roxie Hart (1942).

Director Alfred Santell’s 1938 RKO Radio Pictures black and white romantic comedy film Having Wonderful Time is based on a Broadway play by Arthur Kober, who also writes the screenplay, and stars Ginger Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

Bored New Yorker ‘Teddy’ Shaw (Ginger Rogers), who works in a noisy, busy typing pool, wants culture on her summer holiday at a vacation camp called Camp Kare Free in the Catskill mountains, but instead she gets a romantically inclined waiter Chick Kirkland (Douglas Fairbanks Jr).

Having Wonderful Time is a tentatively achieved comedy, but it is saved with good scenes, an excellent turn from Rogers, amusing Lucille Ball, funny routines from Red Skelton in his début, credited as Richard (Red) Skelton, and a great roster of reliable support performers. There would have been much more of Skelton but RKO cut his role.

Also in the cast are Peggy Conklin, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Eve Arden, Lee Bowman, Dorothea Kent, Donald Meek, Jack Carson, Allan Lane, Grady Sutton, Dorothy Tree, Leona Roberts, Harlan Briggs, Inez Courtney, Juanita Quigley, Ann Miller, and George Meeker.

Tremont Street entrance of B. F. Keith Memorial Theatre, Boston, showing Having Wonderful Time (1938).

Fairbanks Jr recalled: ‘The big bosses at the studio were unable to appreciate Skelton’s broad, slapstick style and cut his part down to the barest minimum needed to hold the slender plot together.’

The film cost $966,000, earned $1,008,000 and recorded a loss of $267,000 for RKO Radio Pictures.

The play had its original Broadway run at the Lyceum Theatre from 20 February 1937 to 8 January 1938 with John Garfield, Katherine Locke, Sheldon Leonard, Philip Van Zandt and Cornel Wilde in the cast.

The characters in the play are Jewish. Arthur Kobler recalled: ‘The Will Hays organization [The Motion Picture Production Code, or the Hays Code] – and that is the censor with a capital C – first went on record as saying that the play could not be done as a picture. The Jewish people might create misunderstanding, racial antagonism and all that. 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.’

The 1952 Broadway musical Wish You Were Here, with music and lyrics by Harold Rome, is also based on the play. Sheila Bond played Fay Fromkin and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Eddie Fisher recorded the title song, which reached No. 1 in the US charts.

The cast are Ginger Rogers as Thelma ‘Teddy’ Shaw, Douglas Fairbanks Jr as Chick Kirkland, Eve Arden as Henrietta, Lucille Ball as Miriam ‘Screwball’, Lee Bowman as Buzzy Armbruster, Harlan Briggs as Mr Shaw, Jack Carson as Emil Beatty, Peggy Conklin as Fay Coleman, Inez Courtney as Teddy’s sister Emma, Dorothea Kent as Maxine, Allan Lane as Maxwell ‘Mac’ Pangwell, Donald Meek as P.U. Rogers, Camp Owner, Juanita Quigley as Emma’s daughter Mabel, Leona Roberts as Mrs Shaw, Shimen Ruskin as Shrimpo, Red Skelton [Richard (Red) Skelton] as Camp Social Director Itchy, Grady Sutton as Gus, Dorothy Tree as Frances, and Clarence H Wilson as Mr G, George Meeker (uncredited) as Subway Masher, and Ann Miller (uncredited) as Vivian – Camp Guest Next to Itchy in His First Routine.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,892

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