Brassy acting, bright colors, overflowing comedy and excessive emotion was the name of the game in their comedies of the 1960's and 70's. They produced a style of film for 20 years from 1959's "The Absent Minded Professor" through the last of the "Love Bug" series that scream "take it down a notch". It's well meaning family fare, but the films more often than not quickly date, having an attitude that if you watch it for five minutes after missing the credits, you can tell it's Disney. They aren't, in most cases, bad films, but there's no doubt that they just went a bit too far, having themes or settings, that weren't always the dreamland of "Mary Poppins" or "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".
Disney films introduced me to the smarmy businessman and his "yes men", with "Mr. Big" usually Keenan Wynn, but here the snarky Fred Clark. Among his yes men are Morey Amsterdam and Dean Jones, both of them speaking as if talking to the third balcony, hopefully not swallowing flies as they brayed their lines with overly wide mouth movements. Jones is the too busy to notice father of Ellen Javov, a shy teenager interested in horses. He's too busy pill pushing, here trying to come up with a new slogan for a huge pill (purpose unclear) and names a horse he buys for Javov after that obnoxious pill. To get a promotion to VP, Jones pushes his daughter to win three medals to get to DC and finds himself up against his daughter's teacher, the beautiful Diane Baker. Superdad Jones gets in over his head, and hopefully learns to do these things out of love for his daughter, and calm down his frenetic acting before moving onto Broadway for the upcoming musical "Company".
In spite of the frantic pacing and in your face acting, this turns out to be rather entertaining, if not slightly overlong. Sadly, Javov would die tragically at a very young age (having only made one film), and she's more subtle than many of the veteran players. Rambunctious Kurt Russell plays her all American boyfriend, with Lurene Tuttle amusing as Jones' feisty aunt. Veteran character actress Nydia Westman has a cute cameo as the old lady in the elevator looking for the tenth floor. Typical farce, chase sequences and comical chaos helps this move along, although a 15 minute trimming might have helped this be a bit tighter.
Disney films introduced me to the smarmy businessman and his "yes men", with "Mr. Big" usually Keenan Wynn, but here the snarky Fred Clark. Among his yes men are Morey Amsterdam and Dean Jones, both of them speaking as if talking to the third balcony, hopefully not swallowing flies as they brayed their lines with overly wide mouth movements. Jones is the too busy to notice father of Ellen Javov, a shy teenager interested in horses. He's too busy pill pushing, here trying to come up with a new slogan for a huge pill (purpose unclear) and names a horse he buys for Javov after that obnoxious pill. To get a promotion to VP, Jones pushes his daughter to win three medals to get to DC and finds himself up against his daughter's teacher, the beautiful Diane Baker. Superdad Jones gets in over his head, and hopefully learns to do these things out of love for his daughter, and calm down his frenetic acting before moving onto Broadway for the upcoming musical "Company".
In spite of the frantic pacing and in your face acting, this turns out to be rather entertaining, if not slightly overlong. Sadly, Javov would die tragically at a very young age (having only made one film), and she's more subtle than many of the veteran players. Rambunctious Kurt Russell plays her all American boyfriend, with Lurene Tuttle amusing as Jones' feisty aunt. Veteran character actress Nydia Westman has a cute cameo as the old lady in the elevator looking for the tenth floor. Typical farce, chase sequences and comical chaos helps this move along, although a 15 minute trimming might have helped this be a bit tighter.