Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

JohnHowardReid Penny Singleton (Blondie), Arthur Lake (Dagwood), Larry Simms (Baby Dumpling), Danny Mummert (Alvin Fuddle), Donald Meek (Jonathan Gillis), Donald MacBride (Harvey Morton), Thomas W. Ross (Matthew Dickerson), Elizabeth Dunne (Mrs Dickerson), Robert Wilcox (John Larkin), Harlan Briggs (Holden), Irving Bacon (mailman), Milt Kibbee (creditor), Emmett Vogan (conductor), and "Daisy".Director: FRANK R. STRAYER. Screenplay: Richard Flournoy. Story: Karen DeWolf, Robert Chapin, Richard Flournoy. Based on characters created by Chic Young. Photography: Henry Freulich. Art director: Lionel Banks. Gowns designed by Kalloch. Film editor: Viola Lawrence. Music director: Morris W. Stoloff. Producer: Robert Sparks.Copyright 25 July 1939 by Columbia Pictures Corp. No recorded New York presentation. U.S. release: 20 July 1939. Australian release: late 1939. 7 reels. Original running time variously reported as 61, 68 and 71 minutes. Impossible to check of course, as all present prints run 75 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Blondie saves a friendly resort hotel from bankruptcy.NOTES: Number 3 of the 28-picture series. COMMENT: Dagwood's boss, Mr. Dithers, does not come into this one at all — the film seems to improve by his absence and also by the infusion of new writing talent on the story. Karen DeWolf and Robert Chapin collaborated on the story with screenwriter Richard Flournoy.The plot is stronger and much more entertaining than the first films in the series. Also the film's budget is larger (no doubt as a result of the commercial success of the first films). This is reflected not only in the more painstaking direction by Frank R. Strayer, and better film editing by Viola Lawrence, but in the large number of extras, the spectacular fire sequences, and the large number of sets.

MartinHafer In the space of a little over a decade, a couple dozen Blondie and Dagwood films were made. Obviously, they were very popular B-movies and after having seen quite a few of them I can understand why. They were fun little pictures...with likable characters and stories. Plus, they managed to have the same three actors play their roles...and you get to see Baby Dumpling go from early childhood to his teenage years...something very unique for any series of films.Here in "Blondie Takes a Vacation", the story picks up exactly where it left off in the previous film. The Bumsteads FINALLY get to go on the vacation they were supposed to take in "Blondie Meets the Boss". However, as you'd expect, the family's trip turns out to bring all sorts of surprises. First, on the train they meet up with a very nasty guy. And, when they arrive at their hotel, they find this same guy is the owner...Mr. Morton (Donald McBride...who made a career out of playing grouches!). Morton is a spiteful guy and refuses to honor their reservation and so they are forced to stay in the only other hotel...a place that is practically deserted. Why? Because Morton's been working hard to destroy his competition and stands to cheat these nice people out of their hotel. As a result, Blondie and Dagwood promise to help them try to make a go of it.The best part of the film is how Baby Dumpling manages to do so much to help the good guys...and so much to destroy bad Mr. Morton! I especially liked when Baby met up with that bad kitty! Well written and fun...and well worth your time.

bkoganbing The third film of the Blondie series finds Blondie and Dagwood finally on a vacation with Baby Dumpling and Daisy in tow. Unfortunately on the train to the lake resort hotel they've got a reservation for they manage to annoy at every opportunity Donald MacBride the owner of the place. He especially doesn't like dogs and kids.Which is enough to get them tossed from MacBride's place and the only other place is a ramshackle resort owned by kindly elderly couple Thomas Ross and Elizabeth Dunne. Eccentric old Donald Meek who took a liking to the Bumsteads left with them. But these folks are in hock up to their graying hair and to MacBride.Normally either Dagwood stumbles into a solution or Blondie figures a way out of the Bumstead troubles. But in this story, it's not Arthur Lake or Penny Singleton it's their little boy Larry Simms with the help of Daisy and some wood land friends she made who prove to be MacBride's undoing.It's what Bismarck said about the USA, God's got a special providence for the Bumsteads.

robert-temple-1 This BLONDIE film is full of laughs but mostly takes place away from the Bumstead family home, and J. C. Dithers and the office do not appear in it at all. Most of the film is set beside a lake at a summer holiday hotel. The amazing series of incidents and highly complex twists of plot are every bit as intricate as in the previous film in the series. Daisy the Dog gets more and more endearing, as she learns more and more cute tricks for the camera. At one point she even leaps into the air and flies right past Dagwood and Blondie's heads as if she had been shot out of a cannon. I really don't know how they did that stunt. She also turns backwards somersaults to express her dismay. Baby Dumpling (played by the unforgettable Larry Simms) is getting wiser and wiser as his parents get stupider and stupider, and he sits pontificating like a Taoist sage, expressing his disdain at their childish behaviour and lecturing them about how they should behave. (Remember, he is only four years old!) The results of this are hysterically funny. At the very beginning of the film, he and his friend Alvin from next door exchange ponderous and droll remarks like two old codgers sitting on a porch in the evening chewing their 'baccy', and commenting upon the hopelessness of the world, or I should say at the hopelessness of Dagwood and Blondie, who are in a sense a world of their own, after all. Often in these films, Blondie is the sensible one and it is Dagwood who is the idiot. But in this film, both are idiots. After all, Blondie locks herself in the bedroom when they are supposed to be leaving for holiday and sobs and pouts because Dagwood did not express sufficient enthusiasm for her weird new 'holiday hat'. (To their credit, Daisy raised her ears in horror at the hat and Baby Dumpling did a horrified double-take as if he had become disillusioned in humanity at large.) People who do not know what a skunk is will miss part of the plot of this film. A skunk, for those who do not know, is a small furry black and white animal found in the woods who when disturbed emits a stink so horrible that if one gets in the house you have to burn the carpet and furniture to get rid of the smell. Baby Dumpling does not know what a skunk is, so he plays with them and calls them 'pretty kitties', with malodorous consequences for all. There is a guest appearance in the film of a St. Bernard, and a scene where Baby Dumpling is discovered asleep in the baggage car of the train taking them on holiday with Daisy in his arms and his head resting on the St. Bernard as if it were a huge four-poster bed, all three of them sleeping soundly in an idyllic pose. There is a horrid man in the story, played by Donald MacBride, master of the slow burn, who turns out to be a genuine villain, and it is, you guessed it, not Dagwood or Blondie who gets the best of him, but Baby Dumplng, the four year-old Hercule Poirot of this wonderful comedy. Donald Meek is delightful in a guest appearance character role in the film. The series marches on, and fortunately there are 25 more to go, which means thousands more laughs are on the way. I saw the whole series once years ago, and now am enjoying seeing it again even more than I did the first time. It seems to get funnier with time. That is because it is so genuine, and without affectation. The plots may be incredibly complicated, but the humour is as simple as, well, Dagwood. Really, the Blondie series is a truly great classic series in the history of American situation comedy.