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I'll tell you why so serious

Great Film overall

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

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?

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.

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.