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!

The Big Bus

The Big Bus
June 23, 1976
Paramount
Comedy, Action
VHS
A-

This note-perfect parody of '70s disaster movies is not only in my opinion much more enjoyable than the more famous and successful Airplane (1980), but it's the most fun I've had with any of my movies since Some Like It Hot.  It's partly that I'm a '70s kid and I love the bright colors and tackiness of this Ford-era movie, especially on the title vehicle, including the Bicentennial dining room.  But it really is dead on, from its David Shire score (as overwrought as anything in the Airport movies, but with whimsical touches like a sample from "Home Sweet Home" when the "flags of all nations" are raised to slow down the bus), to the dialogue, with such quotable lines as Joseph Bologna defensively exclaiming "You eat one lousy foot-- they call you a cannibal!", and a pre-Benson Rene Auberjonois as a doubting priest taunting Ruth Gordon, "Where's your god now, old woman?"  I also love all the exchanges between a pre-Soap Richard Mulligan and a post-MASH Sally Kellerman as a soon to be divorced couple, as well as Richard B. Shull (around the time of Holmes and Yo-Yo) hitting all the cliches in his "I wanna live" speech when Lynn Redgrave seduces him in a tub.

It's a very big bus, with a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a piano bar where Murphy Dunne (who wrote his own material) anticipates Bill Murray's lounge singer by a year or so.  The bus is nuclear-powered and on a non-stop trip from New York to Denver, although the scenery is very obviously Californian, from the street with the Thrifty's to the mountains.  And, yes, very '70s, with the sodas that poor Stockard Channing almost drowns in including Fanta and Fresca.

She's wonderful, the whole cast is wonderful!  I haven't even mentioned Larry Hagman as the doctor who insists that Harold Gould (wounded by a St. Christopher's medal) can't be moved, or Ned Beatty and Howard Hesseman as the bickering technicians, or Jose Ferrer and Stuart Margolin as villainous brothers (despite being born almost 30 years apart), or Vic Tayback in a tiny plum of a role as a bus driver who gets in a broken milk carton vs. broken candle bar fight.

I spent most of the time grinning, when I wasn't giggling.  This viewing, I was struck by the fact that it actually works on a story level.  I mean it's not just gags, there's actually a plot that's somewhat resolved.  (After a literal cliffhanger, the bus faces another disaster as the credits start rolling.)  And I don't think you have to have seen Earthquake, Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, Airport, or Airport '75 (they still hadn't released '77 or Concorde at that point) to enjoy it, although it probably helps if you're a movie buff and can appreciate all the tropes.  Even on this viewing, I found new things to appreciate, like the Edith Head glasses on Redgrave's designer character.  Judging from the IMDB reviews and comments, as well as other online reviews, this movie doesn't do it for everyone, but I think if you like it, you'll like it a lot.

This time Vito Scotti plays a barber.  Harry Holcolmbe, who plays the older priest, was Capt. Malone in Escape to Witch Mountain.  Of the unnamed bus passengers, a few would go on to other cult/obscure movies I own: Selma Archerd to Americathon and Can't Stop the Music, Nick Pellegrino to I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Cynthia Szigeti to both The Gong Show Movie and Johnny Dangerously, and Andrew Winner to Valley Girl.

And James Frawley would go on to direct The Muppet Movie.