User Reviews

Nanny's old Model A Ford appears to be beyond fixing now and the kids clamor for a replacement - until the replacement is made and they realize Arabella is gone for good. A mad dash to try to get Arabella back finds she's been sold to an artist, but he's either lost her to creditors or thieves. But like a lost pet, or a bad penny, can Arabella find her way home? Jack Burns makes a great fast-talking used car salesman (fast talk was his specialty). The inside joke? Burns slips his sales pitches into long descriptions of old movies and the actors in them, many of whom Richard Long (the Professor) worked with 20+ years earlier in his career.

Nanny's (Juliet Mills) Model A Ford "Arabella" is having mechanical problems. Hal (David Doremus) is unsuccessful in being able to repair it. He's upset that he missed an important tennis lesson and says he's finished caring about the car and that it has "had it". The professor (Richard Long) says the kids really couldn't feel that way and if they traded the car in for a new one, they would be upset. They put the theory to the test and take Arabella to a used car lot where the encounter slick-talking salesman Harry Phillips (Jack Burns, "Warren" from "The Andy Griffith Show"). In-between reciting classic movie scenes, Harry sells the professor a blue 1963 convertible for $500 and Arabella on the condition the kids like it. The move backfires, as the kids are excited with the new car. With mysterious musical cues, Hal, Butch (Trent Lehman), and Prudence (Kim Richards) discover they've left items inside Arabella. Nanny takes them all to the lot to see Arabella, but Harry tells them a man named George Bachman (Eddie Ryder, "The Country Girl") bought her. They drive to his residence where the landlady (familiar frumpy character actress Bella Bruck) tells them he is an sculpture artist and can be found at an art gallery in town. While there they discover a sculpture made from an older car, and fear the worse for Arabella.

The plot seems a but implausible and the moral payoff rather weak.