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!

Thunder Alley

Thunder Alley
March 22, 1967
AIP
Drama
DVD
C-

This is more of a drama than Fireball 500, although Annette does get a nice solo.  (Fabian again doesn't sing.)  Much of it is boring, but I was surprised by the relative depth to Annette's character and Diane McBain's, with the two rivals bonding despite their competition over Fabian.  McBain and Fabian have a racy (no pun intended) scene in a motel, racier than Frankie's with Julie Parrish.  They're both topless in bed, although she's got that movie-only thing of the sheet pulled up to her armpits.  There's also a wilder-than-a-beach-party party where one girl dances in her bra and miniskirt while another strips to nothing.  (We see her clothes flying but no actual nudity.)

Fabian is as bland as ever, but Warren Berlinger gets to be a "nice guy" turned wrong, and Jan Murray is pretty good as Annette's money-grubbing but good-hearted father.  However, the guys just aren't as interesting as Annette, who's out of character but still likable, even as she does amateur psychoanalysis, stunt driving, drunk driving, and man-stealing.

Surviving Beach Party crowd members are Ronnie Dayton, Guy Hemric, Luree Nicholson Holmes, Mary Hughes, Salli Sachse, and Rosemary Williams (the English girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini).  As in F500, they're not given much to do.

Announcer Sandy Reed was in F500 and would be in Speedway.  Baynes Barron also did F500 and would be in C.H.O.M.P.S.  Maureen Arthur, who plays Babe, would have similar blonde bimbo roles with a humorous side in How to Commit Marriage and The Love God?  I don't think I have any other Michael Bell movies, but he did make two memorable appearances as sleazeballs on Three's Company.

"So I said, if I sing in a movie, how can I be taken seriously as an actor?"

Spinout

Spinout
December 14, 1966
Comedy, Musical
MGM
VHS
B-

The Medveds selected this as one of their 50 Worst Movies of All Time, when it's not even the worst Elvis movie.  (But then, they also picked Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!, which isn't even the worst Bob Hope sex comedy.)  It is the most entertaining of my '66 movies, an admittedly dubious achievement.  It has some things in common with Girl Happy, notably a romance with Shelley Fabares, and Elvis leading a music combo that features Jimmy Hawkins.  In that movie, the music cues told us that Elvis's pals were three blind mice, while here they are stooges named Larry, Curly, and...Les?  Les is a tomboy drummer, played by Deborah Walley, so already we can see that the formula's being mixed up a bit.  (Since she's a redhead, it's like she's the grandmother of the Kim character in Scott Pilgrim.)   Les has an unrequited crush on Elvis, and there's a Helen-Gurley-Brownish writer pursuing Elvis, too.  In the end he "marries all of them," to other men.  (I think he means he gives them away, although this may be a very early case of people getting married by Elvis.)  Along the way, there are some songs that range from romantic to silly, Elvis lines that include the word "kosher" and a Don Adams imitation, and Carl Betz, Shelley's TV dad, playing her attractive big-screen dad.  Oh, and some racing, but it isn't as boring as in most movies, because it focuses on the competition between various characters, rather than the racing per se.

Una Merkel, of The Bank Dick and The Road to Zanzibar, has one of her last roles, as Mrs. Radley.  Dave Barry (not that Dave Barry) was much more memorable as Beinstock in Some Like It Hot than he is as Harry here.  Christopher Riordan, who was a latecomer to the AIP Beach Party series, appears in a small role.  Victoria Carroll was the shoeshine girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and she plays Award Girl here.  (She's probably best known as Mel's girlfriend Marie on Alice.)  Nancy Czar was in Girl Happy and Winter A-Go-Go.  Arlene Charles was also in Winter AGG.  Phyllis Davis and Deanna Lund were models in The Swinger.

Warren Berlinger, who plays fainter Philip, and Diane McBain, who's writer Diana St. Clair, would be in another racing movie, Thunder Alley.  Dodie Marshall, who plays Susan, the girl who takes the drumming spot, would do Elvis's Easy Come, Easy Go, Will Hutchins ("Officer Tracy," the friendly gourmet cop) Clambake, Sheryl Ullman Speedway, and Thordis Brandt Live a Little, Love a Little.  James McHale plays Shorty and would do The Love God? Two of Elvis's real-life friends, Red West, who was in Girl Happy, and Joe Esposito, who'd be in Clambake, play members of Shorty's pit crew.