The Shaggy D.A.

The Shaggy D.A.
December 17, 1976
Disney
Children's, Comedy, Fantasy
DVD
B-

Although this doesn't hold up as well as some of the other Disney live-action movies of the '70s, it's somewhat fun if you can get past the incredible-- even by the standards of kid flicks-- implausibility and silliness.  I mean, there's a scene where someone in an obvious dog costume is dressed as a roller derby girl and driving an ice cream truck!  And there's a pie fight just because there has to be pie fight, and vehicles crashing into police cars because that's what happens in Disney live-action movies of the '70s.  The special effects seem weaker than in Escape to Witch Mountain, but I think this is partly because the movie overall is extra unreal.  (Even the ice cream syrup looks off, like it's paint.)  Some of the silliness is interesting, like the celebrity-inspired voices (Bogie, Mae West, etc.) for the dogs in the pound, and there does seem to be a slightly dark edge to the movie under the froth-- with the title character's life in danger, and a link between politics and crime.  This film came out shortly after Carter was elected partly on the basis that he was an outsider untouched by Watergate and other corruption, and Wilby Daniels is planning to "clean up" the corruption in Medfield.  (I'm not an expert on Disney, but I think their backlot small towns of the '50s through '70s tended to have bland M-names like that.  I think it was Midvale in the Merlin Jones movies.)

This is of course a sequel to The Shaggy Dog, which, although based on Felix Salten's The Hound of Florence, was sort of Disney's answer to I Was a Teenage Werewolf, with Tommy Kirk rather than Michael Landon.  Dean Jones replaces Kirk here, now that Wilby is all grown-up, with a law career, a hot wife (the incomparable Suzanne Pleshette, unfortunately not given much to do), and a slightly bratty son.  (Shane Sinutko was in things like The ABC After-School Special, so I recognized him right away, but I've got to say he's not one of the better kid actors, particularly at Disney in the '70s.  His intonation here is frequently wrong and he has none of the naturalism and likability of Ike Eisenmann or Kim Richards, to say nothing of the star quality of Jodie Foster.)

Wilby, with the help of his family and an ice cream man named Tim (Tim Conway), must face Keenan Wynn and Vic Tayback as the villains, but I thought the real scene stealer was Wynn's yes-man Dick Van Patten, who has a sycophantic laugh that would make Ed McMahon jealous.  Jo Anne Worley appears as Tim's ice-cream-worker-by-day/ roller-derby-queen-by-night love interest.  Hans Conreid, with that marvelous voice, is well cast as a museum curator.  Pleshette has a telephone conversation with one of her then TV-husband's patients, John Fiedler as the pound manager.

This time Herb Vigran plays a bar patron, but he doesn't have any lines, while Iris Adrian is the "manageress" at the pie factory.  Warren Berlinger is Dip.  Roller rink announcer Dick Lane was the racetrack announcer in Dear Brigitte.  Benny Rubin, who's a waiter here, was Chicken Feather in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.  Milton Frome, who plays the auctioneer, was Ann-Margret's father in The Swinger.  Peter Renoudet, who's the roller derby ticket-taker, was a policeman in The Barefoot Executive.  Paul Sorensen played a policeman in Escape to WM as well, while policeman Hank Jones was Stan in Barefoot Exec.

Danny Wells, who plays a police official, would be Al in Goin' Coconuts.  Pat McCormick, who's Harry the bartender here, would be the carnival barker in Scavenger Hunt, which would feature Sinutko as Scott Motley.  This was Robert Stevenson's last big-screen directing job.

Hey, this was hilarious when I was 8!

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web
March 1, 1973
Hanna-Barbera
Children's, Fantasy, Musical
VHS
B

Some of what I feel about this movie is mentioned in my review of the E.B. White book-- http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/06/charlottes-web.html-- but I want to add some things.  It is a very 1970s-televisiony movie, but I don't consider that a bad thing.  The Hanna-Barbera animation is "limited" but there are some lovely images, and I like how they captured Charlotte's personality in a few simple facial details.  The voice cast includes performers from The Partridge Family (Danny Bonaduce, Dave Madden) and Bewitched (Agnes Moorehead, the incomparable Paul Lynde as Templeton), as well as you'll-know-them-when-you-hear-them voices (Herb Vigran, Pamelyn Ferdin).  Debbie Reynolds is perfect as Charlotte-- warm, smart, loyal, but also with an edge.  (You can believe she'd suck blood out of flies, or inflict minor revenge on Templeton.)  The script by Earl Hamner, Jr. is both more slapsticky and more sentimental than White's book, but the focus stays mostly on the cycle of life and the importance of friendship.  There are perhaps too many songs by the Sherman brothers, and some of them sound like previous music of theirs, but there are some stand-outs, slow almost mournful tunes like "Deep in the Dark" and "Mother Earth and Father Time," as well as jaunty songs like "Zuckerman's Famous Pig" and the smorgasbord tune.  What chokes me up is not Charlotte's death, which is subtly led up to, but Wilbur's fear that her children will all abandon him, and that line from the book, "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer."  And it's not often that you find a film adaptation equal to the book.

Of the singers, Jackie Ward sang Linda Evans's songs in Beach Blanket Bingo; and Dick Bolks, Paul DeKorte, Susie McCune, Gene Merlino, Paul Sandberg, and Bob Tebow would all be part of the chorus in Heidi's Song.

Cancel My Reservation

Cancel My Reservation
September 21, 1972
Naho/Warner Bros.
Comedy, Mystery
VHS
C

Louis L'Amour wrote the novel that this Southwest mystery was based on, with the less Hope-ful title of The Broken Gun.  I can only imagine what Dominic Frontiere would've done with that, since he sings the Jackson-5ish "Cancel My Reservation" over both opening and closing credits.  Bob H was pushing 70 at this point, but his character is supposed to be 42, and he's paired with 48-year-old Eva Marie Saint, who looks stunning.  (And she shows off a lot of skin for a middle-aged woman, including in hot pants.)  The two of them are unhappily married because she's a women's libber whose "own thing" is becoming co-star on his talk show.  (They interview a pre-Happy-Days Pat Morita as a karate expert.)  Even though he doesn't seem to like children (he says that two rude autograph-seekers, one played by the director's daughter, at the airport are a good argument for the Pill), she blames herself that they haven't had any kids.  The happy ending, after he's several times arrested and they both come close to dying, before he finally solves the mystery, is she's pregnant and can leave the show.  Even though she told "Crazy" (Anne Archer) that she hated being stuck at home while her husband went off to work, she seems pleased about this.

As for the mystery, it includes Forrest Tucker and Ralph Bellamy as villains, some Indian land rights, and a few murders.  Keenan Wynn plays the local sheriff, and Chief Dan George a really old Indian.  I haven't read the book, so I don't know how much of this was added by co-adapters Bob Fisher and Arthur Marx, who'd teamed up for I'll Take Sweden.  I am fairly sure though that the joke, "I'll come back for my stomach later," when Bob is on the back of a motorcycle is a direct self-steal from Sweden.  And I suspect L'Amour did not include a rape joke.  (Eva MS, upon finding out that the Indian girl Bob H is accused of killing wasn't raped, says, "And that gets you off the hook with me.")  The movie is of course sexist and racist, although I suppose it could be worse.  It's incredibly dated, even for its time (the Twiggy joke for instance), and the cameos of Bing, John Wayne, Johnny Carson, and Flip Wilson are only slightly better than those in Birds Do It.  (At least they're given lines, although not good ones.)  Oh, and this time Herb Vigran plays Roscoe Snagby.

The movie isn't dreadful but it doesn't even have the camp appeal of Hope's '60s comedies.  It's just sort of there.  I guess see it if you're curious and/or a completist.

This is somewhat the chronological midpoint of this project, since I started with 1929 and I'm unlikely to finish before next year.  At the moment, I don't own any movies from after 2012, but that will probably change before I'm through.

Points for correct use of "whom"

The Barefoot Executive

The Barefoot Executive
March 17, 1971
Disney
Children's, Comedy
DVD
B+

This was one of my favorite Disney movies as a kid, but I don't think it's just nostalgia that made me enjoy it so much this time.  For one thing, it's really funny, not just the satire of television but even some of the slapstick.  (I could've done with less of the "ledge" scene though.)  For another, there's actually a consideration of ethics, with Kurt Russell (20 on the day this was released but playing a 21-year-old), as mailboy Steve Post (ha ha, pun), lying and cheating his way to the top of the network, but then realizing that love-- of his girlfriend and of the title character-- and self-respect matter more than money, fame, and success, so the three of them ride off together on a motorcycle, a later '60s version of what the Beach Boys sang of in The Monkey's Uncle: a bride, a groom, a chimpanzee.

Yes, it's another Disney chimp movie, with the simian this time picking programs that will be ratings successes.  (One is Laugh-Out.  There are lots of little digs at current or at least recent shows.)  Raffles is left in the care of Steve's girlfriend, who is played by 20-year-old Heather North, the future Daphne of Scooby-Doo, when her Italian neighbors can't take him on their move to San Francisco.  I mention this detail because no one ever points out that maybe the Bernaduccis deserve the million-dollar check for raising the chimp to be a TV critic.  The movie is full of holes and implausibilities and WTF moments, but I'm not putting it in the fantasy genre.  (It's not like it's a talking chimp.)

Steve, who initially dislikes the chimp, finds out Raffles's talent, and switches him with a look-alike.  (Again, you expect some sort of pay-off, like that Steve will sell the Raffles impostor for the big check, but, no, the second chimp disappears from the movie after awhile, his fate unknown.)  Steve becomes network vice-president, before Joe Flynn, as Russell's boss Francis X. Wilbanks, and Harry Morgan, as Flynn's boss E. J. Crampton, with the help of Wilbanks's nephew Roger, foil his scheme.  Roger is played by 22-year-old John Ritter in his big-screen debut, and he's wonderful.  He's cast against type, somehow both nerdy and slimy, but he has a proto-Jack-Tripper moment when he dashes down the hall and leaps over a desk, after figuring out who Post's mysterious roomie is.

The movie has other future and past TV stars, like Wally Cox (Mr. Peepers), who has a larger role here than he did as Wampers in The One and Only...Family Band, this time as the "simple" asthmatic chauffeur for Joe Flynn.  Bill Daily, in between I Dream of Jeanie and The Bob Newhart Show, has a not-much-of-a-stretch cameo as a navigator.  Dr. Bellows, Hayden Rorke, also shows up.

Alan Hewitt, who was Professor Shattuck in the Merlin Jones movies, plays Farnsworth here.  This time Arthur Tovey plays a man at the baseball game, Herb Vigran a fireman.  James B. Douglas (later Buddy Didlo, no, that's not a typo, in The Gong Show Movie), Peter Paul Eastman (a newspaperman in The Love God?), George N. Neise (Ben Milford in Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady), and Jeffrey Sayre (a senator in Skidoo) play TV executives.  Sponsor Glenn Dixon was a family member in The Love God?

Beulah Bondi (Jimmy Stewart's mother in It's a Wonderful Life) appears in a clip from So Dear to My Heart (1948, I've never seen it).  Newscaster Ed Reimers basically plays himself, as he did in Sgt. Deadhead (which also involved a chimp).  Bruce Rhodewalt was Clarke in The Perils of Pauline and plays Jason R. Wilbanks.  Hank Jones played the town delivery boy in Family Band and is Stan here (the guy who sees the chimp going up and down the mail elevator).

Policeman Peter Renoudet was a Dakota townsman in Family Band and would be a roller derby ticket-taker in The Shaggy D.A.  Iris Adrian, who was Mary Lou in Go West and a French soubrette in The Road to Zanzibar, was pushing 60 when she played the irate woman shopper, but she would go on to other Disney films, like Freaky Friday.

I must note that the sort of title song, "He's Gonna Make It" (it says "barefoot" but not "executive"), doesn't have very many lyrics, but what it has manage to be both delightful and embarrassing in the use of '60s slang, with this sentence being the best/worst:  "When they start rapping that he's too young/ He makes his mind up/ That he'll wind up/ Number one/ And the whole wide world will know that he's around/ Though other cats get uptight and try to put him down!"

Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?

Did You Hear the One About the Traveling Saleslady?
July 14, 1968
Universal
Comedy, Historical
VHS
B-

I would recommend this movie to either people over 40 who have a soft spot for silly '60s sitcoms, since it's basically a big-screen equivalent of what was playing on TV that decade, or to little kids, since there's a lot of slapstick, and the suggestive humor looks pretty mild these days.  (In fact the movie is, despite its title, rated G.)  Not only does it star Phyllis Diller at her zaniest, wearing several stunning outfits designed by Omar of Omaha, and a post-Gilligan Bob Denver, but it's full of once familiar TV faces, including future Good Morning, America host David Hartman as the constable (and the only one even attempting a rural Missouri accent).  Also, the background music is by Vic Mizzy at his mizziest.  (Sorry, no title song this time.)  The movie is set in 1910, but it doesn't particularly resemble Mary Poppins, other than it has a woman from out of town dropping in (by train rather than umbrella) and turning everyone's life upside-down.  The humor is hokey but sometimes funny, and it's not too surprising that director Don Weis helmed Pajama Party and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini over at AIP.

Kent McCord again has a small role, as he did in John Goldfarb and Girl Happy.  Herb Vigran, who was one of the men on the train with Fred Astaire in Band Wagon, is the baggage man here and would do Lurvy's voice in Charlotte's Web.  Dal McKennon was the bearded gas station attendant in Clambake, is the Civil War veteran here, and would be a bird caller in The Love God? Bob Hastings, who's Denver's rival Lyle Chatterton here, would also be in The Love God?, as Shrader.  Jane Dulo is mostly known for her TV appearances (99's mother on Get Smart, the grandmother on Gimme a Break!, etc.), yet she not only plays Clara Buxton here but would be Miss Flick in the Pufnstuf movie, which was cowritten by one of this movie's cowriters, John Fenton Murray.  George N. Neise is Ben Milford here and would be a network exec in The Barefoot Executive.  Joe Flynn (best known for McHale's Navy) would be just as irritable in Barefoot as he is here playing banker Hubert Shelton.  Speaking of irritable men, this time Charles Lane plays Diller's boss at the player-piano company.

Lloyd Kino, who plays the Chinese laundryman that keeps flinging his laundry basket in the air whenever chaos ensues in "downtown Primrose," was then about 50 but would play "Asian Tourist Husband" almost 40 years later in Miss Congeniality 2.  (He was actually Japanese-American, born in Seattle.)

The Girl Can't Help It

The Girl Can't Help It
December 1, 1956
Fox
Comedy, Musical
DVD
B-

Based on Garson Kanin's novel Do Re Mi, this is both a star-maker for Jayne Mansfield and a time capsule of early rock & roll-- including Little Richard, Fats Domino, the Platters, and Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps.  (My favorite song is probably the very silly "Cinnamon Sinner" by the Three Chuckles.)  In the opening sequence, Tom Ewell changes the screen to Cinemascope in "gorgeous lifelike color," so there's a lot of eye candy, including some suggestive sight gags when Jayne struts down the street.  Unfortunately, the movie is never quite as much fun as it could be.  The gangster plot gets too much attention, although I like "Rock Around the Rock Pile" (which predates "Jailhouse Rock").  The energy feels off, especially in the second half.  I definitely recommend watching the movie, but please don't expect something amazing.  It's certainly a better Fox musical than There's No Business Like Show Business, but it's nowhere near the magic of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, partly because most of the songs seem to have little to do with the story, and partly because the main characters are less appealing.

George Givot was in The Road to Morocco.  Henry Jones ("Mousie") and Fred Catania would be in Tashlin's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Mansfield.  Billy Wayne would be in Some Like It Hot.  Herb Vigran was one of the men Fred Astaire eavesdrops on in The Band Wagon, and would do Lurvy's voice in Charlotte's Web, as well as a lot of TV.  Child star Barry Gordon still does a lot of TV but I doubt I have any of his other movies.

The Band Wagon

The Band Wagon
August 7, 1953
MGM
Musical, Comedy, Romance
DVD
C-

This is the last of the movies on the four-pack I bought only for Singin' in the Rain.  (Hereafter, abbreviated as SitR.)  I found The Band Wagon alternately irritating and boring, if not so bad as Minelli's Meet Me in St. Louis.  Cyd and Fred have no chemistry, except maybe as friends.  (The 22-year age difference is alluded to in the movie, but it doesn't help that Fred always looks older than he is.  The 20-year age difference between Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in SitR is much less obvious.)  The supporting cast doesn't really contribute anything.  The play-within-the-movie (also called The Band Wagon, for unclear reasons in both cases) fails to be so-bad-it's-fun, in the way that The Dueling Cavalier is in SitR.  (Or much later, Elephant! in The Tall Guy.)  The revamped play isn't any better, although I sort of like the "Triplets" song, the only memorable tune besides "That's Entertainment."  (Not only is the latter a classic, but I thought it was noteworthy that Nanette Fabray could sing the word "sex.")  The romance aside, the plot makes no sense, including why they want the dramatic (in every sense) director to take charge of a musical.  The use of color is mostly good, even if one of the rooms is so red it would be a bit much in a brothel.  The eleven-minute "Girl Hunt Ballet" is much better than the "Broadway Melody Ballet" in SitR, but then there's no momentum for it to break up.

While this is far from the worst imaginable movie Astaire could've made, it is a letdown.  Luckily, his reputation doesn't rest on this (or Easter Parade).  Maybe in the '50s the Astairish character he's playing was a has-been and his movie costumes were being sold off for pennies, but time would be kind to Astaire's reputation.  He's certainly more of a legend than Ava Gardner, who has a cameo as herself.  (And by the '80s, movie props and costumes were doing much better at auctions.)

Helen McAllister also danced in Flying Down to Rio, twenty years earlier.  Judy Matson also sang in The Big Store.  Al Hill was in The Bank Dick.  Frank McClure was in His Girl Friday and Citizen Kane.  Jack Gargan and Harlan Hoagland were also in Citizen Kane.  Herschel Graham was in It's a Wonderful Life.  James Conaty was in All About Eve.  Fred Aldrich was in Sunset Blvd.  Manuel Paris was in Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation.  Brick Sullivan was in a few of my earlier movies, most recently Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.  Donald Kerr also appeared in Go to Mars.

Dee Turnell was in Copacabana and SitR.  Bobby Watson was the diction coach in SitR (and often portrayed Hitler in movies).  Madge Blake played Dora Bailey (and is probably best known for her TV role as Aunt Harriet on Batman).  Jimmy Thompson was the singer of "Beautiful Girl" in SitR, while Fred Datig, Jr., played an usher, as he does here.  Lyle Clark, Marion Gray, Peggy Murray, Charles Regan, and Joette Robinson were also in SitR.  

Judy Landon and Shirley Lopez were in SitR and would be in Gentlemen Prefer.  Herman Boden, Joan Collenete, Jack Dodds, Colin Kenny, Matt Mattox, Frank Radcliffe, Jack Regas, Roberta Stevenson, and Marc Wilder would all be in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  Helen Dickson was in It's a Wonderful and would be in Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki.  Ann McCrea was in SitR and would be in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?  Bert Stevens was in Citizen Kane and would go on to Mary Poppins.

Herb Vigran, one of the men Astaire eavesdrops on on the train, would go on to a bunch of TV guest shots, as well as the voice of Lurvy in Charlotte's Web (1973).  The other man is Emory Parnell, who's Billy Reed in many of the Ma and Pa movies.  Loulie Jean Norman would be part of the chorus for Heidi's Song.  Sue Casey would be in A Very Brady Sequel.  (She'd have a larger role in Catalina Caper, as Anne Duval, but I'm saving that movie for when I do MST3K on my eventual television blog.)

We swear, it's entertainment!