The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band
March 21, 1968
Disney
Musical, Comedy, Drama, Romance
VHS
B-

Now that we're getting into the movies that are younger than I am (though it'll be awhile till we reach any I actually saw on first release), I feel like I should attempt to explain what the deal is with these long, sometimes full-sentence-or-question, and sometimes crazy titles.  (And I don't even own The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.)  I have a couple overlapping theories.  One is that these titles catch the eye and the attention, even if they take up a lot of room on the marquee.  (From here on out, I'm abbreviating this movie as The...Family Band.)  Another theory is, well, it was the '60s (the trend might have started with Dr. Strangelove's full title in '63), and everything was getting more and more colorful and larger than life.  That some of these movies-- this one and John GoldfarbPCH spring to mind-- actually have title songs only adds to the craziness.

Although the family band plays that title song and others-- including a recurring salute to Grover Cleveland!-- the family isn't fully fleshed out.  (There are four younger girls, and I couldn't really distinguish them, except by hair color.)  Mostly, we see Grandpa Walter Brennan, who rails against "Ree-publicans," and his lovely eldest granddaughter, played by 21-year-old Lesley Ann Warren.  There are a couple other notable family members though, Buddy Ebsen (only 14 years younger than Brennan but playing his son), returning to his dancing roots, and an always smiling 16-year-old Kurt Russell, who would soon sort of replace Tommy Kirk as the campus-hijinx lead in Disney movies like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.  (I find them mostly boring, although Computer does have a catchy title tune.  I'm more of a Barefoot Executive kinda gal.)

This film, based on a book by Laura Bower, is set in 1888, when Cleveland was defeated by Harrison.  (And, although no one mentions it, Cleveland in turn would later defeat Harrison.)  The stuff about the electoral college looks even more ironic after the 2000 election, but even in '68 it would take only a few months for the election-day "riot" in this film to seem bizarrely mild, compared to the ugliness surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Yes, it's Disney, but even so, the message that we can put aside our political and other differences must've been a hard one to swallow.

The Republicans are mostly represented by Ebsen, Richard Deacon, and 26-year-old John Davidson.  Davidson's character is courting Lesley AW.  He also urges everyone to move to Dakota, where most of the film is set.  He combines his interests when he sings about the Territory, with a line about "virgin fields" waiting to be "ploughed," sung right at Warren.  Their romance is mostly sweet, although I don't like it when he forces a kiss on her near the end and then makes her join him on a wheelbarrow ride, although she stops being mad when he gives her a wedding ring, so we're supposed to just find it funny and charming.  The two of them try to make each other jealous, he with "Giggly Girl," played by none other than Kurt Russell's future wife, 22-year-old Goldie [Jeanne] Hawn, whose Laugh-In premiered a couple months before this film was released.

Ben Frommer would be in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, as would Larry J. Blake, who was in Sunset Blvd.  Delivery boy Hank Jones was in Girl Happy and would be in The Barefoot Executive.  Dakota townsman Peter Renaday would be the roller derby ticket-taker in The Shaggy D.A.  Nine-year-old Pamelyn Ferdin (Laura Bower) would provide the voice of Fern in Charlotte's Web, while nine-year-old Bobby Riha (Mayo Bower) would voice Chinook in Santa and the Three Bears.  Vest Dancer Guy (The Swinger, et al.) shows up, in a period-appropriate vest (far right, below).