Category Archives: Movies for the Whole Family

The Muppet Movie (1979)

Posted on June 29, 2025 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: How they became famous.

Kermit (Jim Henson) is a lonely frog living in a Florida swamp who dreams of one day making it to Hollywood and becoming famous. He then meets talent agent Bernie (Dom Deluise) who hears Kermit singing a song with a banjo and becomes convinced that the frog has what it takes to become a star. He hands him his card and tells him to give him a visit when it makes it to California. Kermit then sets-off on a cross-country trip and along the way meets several other characters all looking for their big-break including Fozzie Bear, a struggling comedian, and Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) who wants to become a fashion model. They tag along on the trip with Kermit while pilling into Fozzie’s Studebaker as he drives them to the west coast, but then they meet up with Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), an owner of restaurants who specializes in frog legs, who wants Kermit to be his new spokesmen in some commercials that he’s producing, but Kermit declines. However, Doc refuses to take no for answer and chases after the gang and using increasingly more sinister methods in order to get the frog to change his mind. 

Due to the success of ‘The Muppet Show’ creator Jim Henson was given financing to produce his own movie featuring the same puppet characters audiences had grown to love from the program. Since this would be a large-scale production great effort had to be put into making the muppets appear real and able to blend into an actual outdoor setting versus having everything done on a sound stage like it was in the TV-show. Henson refused to compromise on anything and insisted that money would not be a limitation, and this included the segment where Animal, one of the muppet characters, grows to giant proportions. Initially the idea was to keep the puppet the same size and place him on a miniaturized set, which would’ve cut down on costs, but Henson felt this didn’t look convincing enough, so instead they constructed Animal’s head to gigantic proportions that measured over sixty feet, which called for way more money and was very time consuming, but ultimately worth the effort. 

The story itself is pedestrian and relies, similar to the TV-show, with rapid fire quips and comebacks much like in old vaudeville. On the surface the humor is corny, and some could find the whole thing silly, but enjoyment comes with the puppet characters that are made to be like caricatures of humans, and their amusing responses and reactions. It’s also filled with a lot of great songs all written by the talented Paul Williams, who appears briefly. Normally in movie musicals the songs end up sounding the same and it starts to feel like we’re just listening to the same loop done over and over, but here each music bit has a distinct beat and a good toe-tapping quality, which not only adds to the fun, but actually helps move the story along versus holding it up. 

The only drawback is the massive amount of guest star appearances. There are many familiar faces, but most of them are only in it for a half-minute, or so and few of them have anything that’s actually funny to say, or even moderately clever. Performers like Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Madeline Kahn, and Edgar Bergen, in his last screen appearance before dying just a couple weeks later, are essentially wasted in bits that add nothing and could easily have been excised and not missed. However, there’s a few cameos that do work including Steve Martin as an annoyed waiter, Cloris Leachman as a receptionist allergic to animal hair and Orson Welles who comes on near the end and has the film’s best line. Mel Brooks also quite memorable in an over-the-top send-up of a German mad scientist. 

Durning though is the one exception as he is more like a main cast member and in it quite a bit. Of course, he’s an outstanding character actor and a personal favorite and he shines here as well particularly with his attempt at a Cajun accent, but it seemed a bit ridiculous for a guy to go to such extreme measures just to get Kermit to be in his commercials. A better storyline would’ve had Kermit witness Durning turning one of his family members, perhaps one of his distant frog cousins, into a frog legs meal and thus threaten to turn Durning into the authorities and this would cause him to chase after him in order to try and keep him from squealing.  It also would’ve been nice had he shown a change-of-heart at the end and come around to being a friend to the muppets versus remaining an adversary. It comes close at one point when Durning realizes he doesn’t have any real friends like Kermit does, but I would’ve liked to have seen him come to grips with his aggressive personality and make amends to do better moving forward. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 22, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes

Rated G

Director: James Frawley

Studio: Associated Film Distribution

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Campy Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Musical, Road Movies

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Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)

Posted on May 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Out to get Clouseau.

Philippe (Robert Webber) is a successful businessman who’s secretly the head of the French criminal underground. Some though are questioning his leadership considering him to be too weak to remain in that position. In order to squash the impending threat, he decides to make a bold move by having Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) killed. Clouseau was considered a master detective by the outside world and only known to be an incompetent by those who worked with him, so by having him out of the way the drug dealers would feel relieved and thus Philippe would remain in power. However, things don’t get as planned as Clouseau manages to miraculously evade all attempts on his life. The media though mistakenly announces that he has died, which allows Clouseau to go undercover along with his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk) to find out who’s after him.

This marked the fifth entry in the series and is probably the funniest. Initially director Blake Edwards had wanted to reuse footage that had been cut from the previous entry and then film new scenes around those, but star Sellers insisted he wanted an all-new story and that was probably for the best. Sellers by far gets the most laughs whereas in the one that came before this, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, it was Herbert Lom as the unhinged Dreyfus, that was the most memorable, but here his part becomes much more benign, though he still gets one good scene where he tries not to breakout laughing while giving a eulogy at Clouseau’s funeral. Sellers though comes out on top here especially in his disguises like when he pretends to be a sea captain with an inflatable parrot on his shoulder, or in a hilarious send-up as a Mafia Don.

It’s great to see Kwouk, who was usually relegated to the ‘fight’ scene between him and his boss Clouseau, become more involved in the story, as the two go to Hong Kong in disguise to track down the bad guys. Dyan Cannon is a refreshing change of pace. Usually, the women in these films were young models whose sole purpose was to allude sex appeal, but here she’s middle-aged, but still attractive, and shows much more of a feisty personality. She helps build a strong secondary character and is better interwoven into the plot versus simply appearing as a potential romantic interest.

Webber though as the main villain is a detriment. I have no doubt that the notoriously insecure Sellers didn’t like the way Lom stole the film as the nemesis in their last outing and wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. Not only is the Dreyfuss character far more neutered, but so is Webber making him seem like he’s almost sleepwalking through his role. It would’ve been more interesting had his character has some personal vendetta against Clouseau, possibly because it was Clouseau who had sent him, or one of his men to jail, and now he wanted revenge. Just having him out to get Clousau because it might bolster his own image didn’t seem to be enough of an incentive and the two, outside of one comic moment where Clouseau’s is in one of disguises, never have any ultimate confrontation. Watching him get chased around his desk and cower from Dyan Cannon may have been intended as funny, but it just further erodes his villainy making him seem even more impotent than he already is. Even a comedy still needs a bad guy that can elicit some tension and this one doesn’t.

The implementation of Mr. Chong, played by martial arts instructor Ed Parker, has potential. Supposedly he’s an ‘invincible’ fighter that can beat-up anyone and not be stopped as proven when he takes down several other men while in Webber’s office but then he gets comically defeated once he comes into contact with Clouseau. While watching him go through the floor/ceiling of several apartments below as he crash lands is visually funny it would’ve been more engaging if he had come back at some point and continued his relentless attack on Clouseau albeit with injuries in order to reclaim his reputation that he couldn’t be defeated, but in the process just became more hurt and ineffective.

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic sequence that occurs in Hong Kong is a cop-out and comes-off like they’d run out of ideas, so they tried to save it with a calamity filled chase that plays more like a cartoon, or something better suited for a live action Disney movie. Introducing yet another Mafia boss, this one played by Paul Stewart, makes things too cluttered and there should’ve been just one main bad guy that was the boss of everyone. The finale inside a firecracker factory should’ve proven dangerous and in fact we do see the entire place explode from a distance and yet everyone comes out of it unscathed, which doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 20, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Blake Edwards

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Gangster Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Sequels

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The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

Posted on April 27, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Tracking down stolen diamond.

Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) has been demoted to street cop by Chief Inspector Dreyfuss (Herbert Lom) due to Clouseau’s continual incompetence, which is starting to drive Dreyfuss completely mad. However, inside the country of Lugash a prized diamond known as the Pink Panther is stolen and since Clouseau had success retrieving it the first time it went missing during a heist he is put on the case to find it again much to Dreyfuss annoyance. Clouseau suspects that the culprit is Charles Litton (Christopher Plummer), who is a notorious thief. Clouseau attempts to use several different disguises in order to infiltrate Litton’s home that he shares with his wife Claudine (Catherin Schell) in order to find incriminating evidence against Litton so that he can turn him in, but his attempts to try and a take Litton down prove to be comically inept. 

This marked the fourth installment of the Pink Panther series and the first in 10-years that reunited writer/director Blake Edwards with Sellers. Both had said after doing the second film A Shot in the Dark, that they never wanted to work with the other again due to much infighting during the production, but both had since then fallen on hard times. Edwards was by the early 70’s considered box office poison after the colossal failure of Darling Lilli which managed to recoup a measly $3 million from a $25 million budget and his other films from that era Wild Rovers and The Carey Treatment hadn’t done much better. Since Pink Panther had been his last success, he was interested in reviving it and even wrote up a 14-page treatment but found no takers amongst the major studios. Then producer Lew Grade agreed to finance it in exchange for Edward’s wife Julie Andrews agreeing to star in a British TV-special that he wanted to produce. Since Sellers career had also bottomed out, he came onboard to most everyone’s surprise without much hassle.

The film was shot in many scenic locations including Morrocco giving the optics an exotic flair and the proceedings a sophisticated European vibe making it seem like a step-up from just a silly comedy. In the first two installments all the characters were written to be funny and goofy particularly the second film, which had been based on a stage play. Here though the comedy is wisely given over to Sellers while the couple he’s after remain savvy, which makes it more intriguing as you want to see how this inept idiot takes them down, or is able to trip them up at their own game. I also liked how funny bits are interspliced with some legitimate action, especially the opening scene that features the heist, which could’ve easily fit into a realistic film dealing with a robbery. These moments help add a bit of relief from all the laughs, a sort of chance to catch your breath, while making the plot seem like it’s not just all about being a farce.

Lom adds terrific support as Clouseau’s exasperated supervisor, and his assertive acting style works nicely off of Sellers clownish one making the interplay between the two a highlight. It’s good too that Plummer replaced David Niven, who played the character in the first one, but wasn’t able to do it here due to scheduling conflicts, as Niven would’ve been too old and not plausible to have outrun the bad guys like Plummer does. 

My only issue is that Claudine is shown attempting to hold in her laughter at Clouseau right from the start like she knows he’s an idiot before she even met him, but this goes against the premise. Clouseau is considered an accomplished detective by the outside world hence why he was selected to head the case and it’s only the people that work with him and know him who are aware of his ineptness. This is the whole reason why Dreyfuss gets driven mad by him because the rest of the world celebrates the man that he knows is really a fool, so Claudine should’ve initially thought of him as being sharp and only came to the conclusion he was incompetent by the end after having dealt with him. It actually would’ve been funnier had she and Charles feared Clouseau upfront having believed his celebrated reputation and misreading his bumbling as being ‘genius’ ploys and remained that way throughout. In either case seeing her covering her mouth and shielding her giggles makes almost seem like she’s falling out of character and a blooper, similar to how Harvey Korman would unintentionally crack-up during Tim Conway’s antics on the ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ and for that reason it should’ve been avoided. 

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: May 21, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Blake Edwards

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Heist Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a Hotel setting, Mystery, Sequels

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Adventures of the Wilderness Family 3 (1979)

Posted on April 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Government threatens their home.

After surviving their first harsh mountain winter the Robinson family (Robert Logan, Susan Damante Shaw, Heather Rattray, Ham Larsen) are happy to go outdoors and enjoy the warmer weather of Spring, but there’s an unexpected problem. While doing a survey of the area a Forest Ranger (William Bryant) has surmised that the family doesn’t have rights to the property that they’re on. They must prove it’s a legitimate mining claim or move out.

I’ll give this film some credit, at least initially, that they made an attempt, albeit a feeble one, to mix things up. I was fully expecting more animal attacks, the formula had one occurring every 15-minutes in the first two installments, but with the exception of one minor one that happens to the boy when he runs away from home, there really isn’t any, at least to the family members. There is however, a confrontation between some mountain lions and the family’s pet dog, but the dog is able to fight them off, though I started to wonder how many times he could keep doing this. In the first two films the dog was also instrumental in scaring the other wildlife away, but you would think a domesticated pet would be at a disadvantage to one that had been living in the wild all their lives and were bigger in size. The fact that the dog constantly survives these battles and never even gets injured starts to raise the implausibility meter.

The two kids also feud a bit, which I found refreshing. Even the Brady Bunch had some conflicts between the siblings, as most any normal family does, so seeing everyone here be peachy towards each other the majority of the time is not only boring, but unrealistic. However, their disagreement, which amounts to nothing more than the two not talking to each other, which we don’t even see, but have described by the two parents, doesn’t last for more than a few minutes and then it’s all back to ‘happy family’. 

The mom finally does go back to L.A., something she had lightly threatened to do in the first two films but just like with the kids fighting it doesn’t add up to much as she comes back and says she’ll never leave again. Why then even add these elements if by the end it makes no difference to the story?

On a lesser note, are the bear cubs residing in the family’s cabin who never seem to grow and if anything, appear to have gotten smaller than when they were in Part 2. The Boomer character played by George ‘Buck’ Flower is also an issue as he’s a mountain man but never carries a gun making you wonder how he survives without one. For instance, how does he protect himself as animal attacks happen a lot, at least with the family, and what does he use to hunt for food? Maybe he lives completely off of berries and fish, but by the looks of his protruding belly it appears he’s eating something more.

Out of everything it’s the music that’s the worst. Because the story is so thin there are several segments featuring the family frolicking around while this sappy chorus by studio musicians get played that’s so sugary it’ll give you diabetes just by listening to it. It also has a dated sound from the 1940’s. The 70’s though was a period of many interesting music genres like rock, disco, soul, and even southern rock and media aimed at kids was trying to replicate it like ‘Sesame Street’ that had the Pointer Sisters singing a song that teaches children to count, but with a funky beat. Even religious people got into the times by introducing Christian Rock, so why does this movie have a soundtrack that’s so grossly out-of-step?

Spoiler Alert!

The third act in which the family openly refuses to leave their home after the Forest Ranger insists proves to be a letdown too as there’s no tense confrontation. Instead, the Ranger’s helicopter mysteriously crashes for no reason as the weather was sunny and when the family nurses him back to health he agrees to no longer push them out. However, all it would take is another government official to come along and the conflict would start all over making the tidy wrap-up/resolution unconvincing. The only positive thing to say is this was thankfully the final film of the series.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 21, 1979

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Jack Couffer

Studio: Pacific International Enterprises

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Roku

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, Sequels

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The Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family (1978)

Posted on March 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Family battles the winter.

The Robinson family (Robert Logan, Susan Damante Shaw, Heather Rattray, Ham Larsen), who moved from Los Angeles to the wild of Colorado during the summer, now must contend with their initial winter there. The first snowfall they find beautiful and enjoy sledding down the hill, but once the holiday season has passed, they face the coldest month and excessive snow. This brings out a hungry pack of wolves lead by ‘Scarface’, which is a black wolf with a disfigured appearance. The wolves are so desperate for food they try breaking into the cabin while the father is away forcing the young boy of only 8 to try to shoot them with his rifle while his sister and sick mother take cover.

At this point it’s hard to believe that the family ever even lived in a city as they seem so well-adjusted to the wild it’s like they must’ve been born there. In fact they’re more able to rough-it than Boomer (George ‘Buck’ Flower) an old-timer who has been living in the mountains his whole life and yet when he sleeps alone as a guest in their back cabin and he becomes scared at seeing bear cubs and raccoons come in during the middle-of-the-night it’s actually the family that is shocked why that should bother anyone even though you’d think them originally being from an urban area it would be the reverse. The father also displays an uncanny knowledge like knowing that when a wolverine sprays a scent onto some meat that they had stored they can no longer eat it, but how the hell does somebody who had lived in Los Angeles his whole life prior be aware of that fact? It’s like he has a direct line to Wikipedia before cellphones, internet, or wi-fi was even a thing.

Like in the first there are more animal attacks though this time it all comes from roaming pack of wolves. However, since they had been through some hair-raising attacks before you’d think they wouldn’t venture back outside unless everyone was armed with a rifle. Yet they foolishly go out in the snow with no guns and then become frozen in terror when the wolves move in, but how many times does this same thing need to happen before they learn to come prepared? The previous attacks from the first movie had been so traumatic I was surprised they weren’t looking over their shoulders at every second versus frolicking around in the open without a care in the world until of course it’s too late.

The mother continues to be the only one who has any misgivings about the move, but then all the father needs to do is remind her of the traffic jams of the city and she immediately backs-off. However, those aren’t the only choices. They could just move to a small town, which wouldn’t have traffic congestion either, but still have running water, electricity, neighbors, and no wild animals breaking into their home in the middle of the night, so why not consider that option?

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic sequence is quite similar to the first one where the two kids and the mother are left fighting off animals’ intent on getting inside though here the anti is upped a bit by having the mom bedridden with illness and a raccoon accidentally setting fire to the place, which just makes it more contrived and isn’t gripping, or exciting. What’s worse is that a doctor flies in afterwards via a helicopter to take a look at the ailing mom and announces she is suffering from pneumonia, but then instead of taking her to a hospital he just leaves her there in the cabin with a big gaping hole in the roof with snow and cold pouring in, which will only make her condition worse.

End of Spoiler Alert!

I’ll give some credit to the picturesque wintertime scenery, but the corny song segments, sung by Barry Williams better known for having played Greg on the ‘Brady Bunch’ TV-show, act as nothing more than filler, which bogs an already anemic story down even further. Young children may be a little more forgiving, but adults should find it flat and one-dimensional. What’s worse is that they actually went on to make a third installment, which will be reviewed next.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 15, 1978

Runtime: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Frank Zuniga

Studio: Pacific International Enterprises

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi, Freevee, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, Sequels

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The Adventures of the Wilderness family (1975)

Posted on March 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Living off the land.

Skip (Robert Logan) is a married father of two who finds his job as a construction worker a thankless routine. The smog of Los Angeles, which is where he and his family reside, is affecting his daughter Jenny (Hollye Holmes) who’s having breathing issues and nothing her doctor has prescribed is helping. He’s also tired of the traffic, which is why one day he tells his wife Pat (Susan Damante-Shaw) that he wants to get out of the city and move to the countryside. After some brief thought she agrees. The family then takes residence in an isolated Colorado cabin that’s rundown and filled with rodents. They’re able though to build a new cabin and move in but then must learn to fight the elements including mountain lions, wolves, and even grizzly bears.

Loosely based on the true-life story of a family that moved from Los Angeles to the remote regions of the Pacific Northwest that was written about in a 1974 New York Times article the film takes too much of a glossy approach to what should’ve been a deeper, more complex drama. The family makes their decision to move too quickly, literally on a ride home while in their pick-up. No scenes showing them having to say goodbye to their friends, selling off all of their belongings, or how they come about choosing the piece of open land that they eventually settle on. I felt for satisfactory emotional impact; to be able to fully appreciate the changes this family was going through those scenes should’ve been shown.

There’s also too much agreement amongst them. They’re all cool with leaving the city and don’t show even a fleeting second thought about it. As a kid that would mean giving up all their friends and playmates, TV-shows, and music and all the other conveniences of suburban living that I’m just don’t believe most children would roll with like here. It would’ve been much more of an interesting story had at least one of the kids been opposed to the move or put up a big fuss only to then maybe soften to the idea once they got out there. It could be done in reverse too with a child really excited to only to change their mind once they came face-to-face with the harsh reality of being in a wilderness long term. Going on a vacation to the woods is one thing but permanently leaving the only life you know to relocate to the middle of nowhere would certainly bring I would argue a lot of tears and adjustment and yet absolutely none of that occurs here making it vapid and lacking any type of character arch. 

What had me even more flabbergasted was that these kids get attacked by wolves and even bears and still don’t want to go back to the city. Yes, there would be smog, but I might be willing to begrudgingly accept that if it meant no more wild animal attacks. I was a kid once too, growing up in that time period, and if I got uprooted like that and went through all the hardships they did, I’d be screaming to go back home making the kids here seem unrelatable. The mother does to some extent put up a meek argument about wanting to go back, but it’s done in a light and gentle manner, and she immediately backs down when the others don’t agree, which makes for non-compelling interactions. 

The scenery is pleasant, filmed at the state park near Gunnison, Colorado, but it becomes like a nature propaganda movie where the only accepted opinion is that living in the country is great, even with the challenges, and no other point-of-view is allowed. Having a debate about the pros and cons of both would’ve added more subtext and made it less one-dimensional. The sappy songs done over the action is nothing but a time filler and proves how overall threadbare it is.

Sure there are a few intense moments including the climactic bear attack with the mother and children trapped in a cabin trying valiantly to fight him off, but whole thing works in a loop where every 10-minutes or so there’s some sort of confrontation with a wild animal, the family then considers giving up on the whole wilderness thing, only to agree to stay and then it starts all over again. Eventually by the third act it becomes quite uncompelling.  

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 19, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Steward Raffill

Studio: Pacific International Enterprises

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Tubi, Freevee, Plex, Roku, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Action/Adventure, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors

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For the Love of Benji (1977)

Posted on February 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Secret code on paw.

Benji (Benjean) and his dog mate Tiffany along with Cindy (Cynthia Smith), Paul (Allen Fiuzat), and their nanny Mary (Patsy Garrett) arrive at the airport to board a plane that will take them to Crete, Greece where they plan to vacation. While waiting in-line Mary visits with the man standing behind her, Chandler Dietrich (Ed Nelson), who seems nice and she, along with the two kids, start-up a friendship. Unbeknownst to them he’s not such a swell guy but instead a spy who’s stolen a secret formula that can accelerate the production of oil. He sneaks into the baggage room and imprints this formula onto Benji’s paw while the animal is stuck in a cage. Things though don’t go as planned because Benji and Tiffany don’t arrive in Greece when the plane does causing much confusion. When he does finally get spotted by a baggage handler he escapes from his cage and runs through the city streets lost and alone. He manages to find the hotel that his owners are staying at but is afraid to go up to them when he sees they’re with Chandler. Once Chandler realizes that Benji is in the vicinity he buys a large Doberman dog to go sniff him out and thus retrieve the formula still imprinted on his paw.

For a follow-up this isn’t bad, and the change of scenery helps. The film also features some exciting chase sequences including the climactic one with Benji trying to escape Chandler who attempts to run him down with his sports car. The segments though dealing with Benji roaming the city streets I didn’t find interesting, nor does it have the gripping quality that they had in the first installment and to have added a dramatic quality to it the children should’ve been lost with Benji and thus caused even more of an urgency. Also, the opening scenes get done in Greek with no subtitles, so it’s impossible to understand what’s said and for the sake of clarity should’ve been spoken at the very least in broken English.

Garret is delightful as the tubby nanny and the scene where she tries to nervously hold a suspected criminal, played by Art Vasil, with a gun despite clearly not knowing how to handle one, is entertaining. The children however seem used only as props to get excited when they see Benji and despondent when they don’t. Surprised too that Peter Breck, who played their father in the first one, isn’t here. It’s stated that he’ll be arriving a week later, but his character was the only one in the first film that had any discernable arch as he initially didn’t like the dog but learned to accept it when the pooch saved the kids, so it would’ve been interesting to see how his relationship with the pet had progressed.

Nelson is the most effective as he’s a smart and cunning villain that creates quality tension every moment, he’s on screen and his somber eyes along with his salt and pepper hair create a creepy vibe. My only issue is that there’s no explanation for how he’s able to get into the baggage area without being detected. He’s in there for several minutes as he drugs the dog, so you’d think some employee would’ve walked in on him, but don’t. Did he bop a security guard on the head to gain access, or knock him out with the same drug he used on the dog? Either way it should’ve been shown as well as explained how he was able to just open the door to the room as you would think it would’ve been locked and a key, or pass code needed for entry.

Spoiler Alert!

The climactic sequence gets a bit botched as Benji arrives at the hotel the family is staying at only to see it surrounded by police. Then Nelson drives up in his car with a gun pointed at Cindy’s head in an attempt to get the dog to jump into the vehicle. However, it doesn’t make much sense for Nelson to go into an area where police are visibly all over as there’s no real chance for escape. It would’ve worked better had the police not been seen up front making Nelson’s arrival seem more plausible as he’d be under the impression no cops were there and more tense as the viewer would think it was all up to Benji to save the girl and no one else to help. Once Benji bites Nelson’s arm forcing him to drop the gun then the police could’ve suddenly appeared by jumping out of the bushes, or wherever, and arrested him.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 10, 1977

Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Joe Camp

Studio: Mulberry Square Releasing

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies with a Hotel setting, Sequels, Spy/Espionage

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Benji (1974)

Posted on February 10, 2025 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dog saves kidnapped children.

Benji (Higgins) is a stray dog who resides in an empty house that some consider haunted in the outskirts of a small town. He regularly visits Cindy (Cynthia Smith) and Paul (Allen Fiuzat) who are children who live in a big home with their father (Peter Breck) and housekeeper Mary (Patsy Garrett). The children want to keep the dog as their own, but the father refuses insisting that strays can carry diseases and therefore it wouldn’t be safe. One day three people (Deborah Walley, Christopher Connelly, Tom Lester) break into the abandoned home, but do not notice Benji, or his poodle companion Tiffany, who hide behind a table. The three, who are led by a fourth person named Mitch (Mark Slade), plot a kidnapping and to Benji’s shock it turns out to be the two children that are the victims. He tries to alert Mary and the father, but is unable to get them to understand until he comes up with a clever tactic to clue them in. Will he be able to get them and the police to catch-on soon enough before the kidnappers move the children out of the home and into an undisclosed location?

The film was a labor of love for writer/director/producer Joe Camp who worked in advertising before deciding to get into filmmaking. The inspiration came while he was watching Lady and the Tramp on TV and concluded that there weren’t enough quality children’s films out there and decided to attempt to change that. However, when he shopped his storyline around to the various studios it got roundly rejected, so he decided to use his background in marketing to make and distribute the film himself. It was made on a modest budget of $500,000 but ended up making $45 million.

Compared to other children’s films this is an improvement as both the children and adults are portrayed as being smart, realistic people. In other kiddie flicks it seems it always has to be one way or the other with the kids being the naive ones saying cutesy, silly things and the adults chuckling about it, or dispensing preachy ‘life lessons’, or its the kids that are in the know while the adults are out-of-touch, so it’s nice when both sides can be shown as sensible and even when there are disagreements it gets handled in a respectful manner. The soundtrack doesn’t have that cheesy, singsong saccharine quality like you usually hear in this type of genre, but is instead distinct, jazzy, and even toe-tapping.

It’s impressive how the film gets literally inside the head of the dog and you see everything, including the camera angles, from his point-of-view. Most other films with animals as characters don’t do that. Usually they get paired with a human friend/owner who helps ‘narrate’ what the animal is thinking, but here there’s none of that. I was thinking, but willing to forgive the moment when one of the kidnappers pulls out a gun and Benji reveals a frightened expression though animals really won’t know what a gun is, but director Camp smartly inserts a visual showing the dog encountering a gun in the past when police confront a robber and thus explaining why the dog would understand its danger, which other filmmakers wouldn’t have bothered to show, or even thought through.

I have only two criticisms. The first one is a relatively mild complaint dealing with the behavior of the bad guys, particularly Connelly and Lester’s characters who seem unrealistically spooked by the house even though two big, tough rugged guys who are streetwise enough to commit a bold kidnapping shouldn’t believe such childish things. When they broke into the house, they should’ve gone through the entire place including the upstairs to make sure no one else, including a possible vagrant, was residing there. Also, when the kids are kidnapped, the perpetrators should’ve worn masks, or blindfolded the kids, so as not to be identified later, which seems like something that should’ve been a no-brainer.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest issue though is when Mitch kicks the little dog named Tiffany and it appears that he’s killed her. While it does show at the very end that she was only injured as the she hobbles out of the vet clinic wearing a cast on her tiny legs it is still very traumatic for a child to see such a violent act on a defenseless animal. I remember when I watched this movie at the age of 5 in the theaters, I cried all the way home afterwards. A few years later when we watched it again on Showtime with my younger brother and sister, they cried about it too. A scene like that, even if the dog is eventually shown as surviving, wasn’t necessary and the movie should’ve certainly been given a PG-rating as the G-rating is misleading.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: October 17, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 25 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Joe Camp

Studio: Mulberry Square Releasing

Available: DVD, Blu-ray

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Posted in 70's Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Movies for the Whole Family, Movies that take place in Texas

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Herbie Rides Again (1974)

Posted on September 30, 2024 | Leave a comment

herbie1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Saving home from demolition.

Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn) is a rich man who wants to build the world’s tallest sky scrapper on land that is currently occupied by a little firehouse built in 1892 and owned by an old lady named Mrs. Steinmetz (Helen Hayes). So far she’s refused all offers by Alonzo’s lawyers to sell, so Alonzo decides to have his nephew Willoughby (Ken Berry) go visit her as he has a very clean-cut image and hopes his nice-guy approach may be what it takes to persuade her. However, once he’s there he gets introduced by Mrs. Steinmetz former neighbor Nicole (Stefanie Powers) who’s now living with the old day due her place being demolished by Alonzo. When Nicole realizes Willoughby is related to Alonzo she immediately takes a disliking to him and even punches him in the face. Her feelings towards him though begin to change when she gives him a ride in the Volkswagen beetle that Steinmetz is taking care of for its owner while he’s away in Europe racing. Willoughby at first doesn’t believe that the car, who’s named Herbie, has a mind of its own, but soon realizes it does after his trip in it and this eventually gets him to side with Nicole and Steinmetz on the issue they’re having with his uncle and he begins fighting with the other two and Herbie to stop Alonzo from tearing the place down.

This was a rather odd idea for a sequel to the Love Bug that came-out 6 years earlier and had the VW Beetle involved in racing, but now apparently was ‘retired’ and no longer able to race effectively even though in the third entry to the series, which came-out 3 years later he does go back to racing.  The plot here though doesn’t really need the car involved to help propel it, yes the vehicle does ‘come to the rescue’ a few times, but the story could’ve easily worked with just the humans fighting Alonzo in various ways and would’ve been just as funny. To make-up for this the film does show archived footage, which goes on for several minutes, of the car ‘dreaming’ about it’s racing days though some of his race ‘victories’ could be called into question like when it decides to go off the racing track in one and cut through a forest and then back onto the track where it’s now at the front line of the other cars, which most would deem as cheating and not really an honorable win.

Overall though I really didn’t find any of the scenes with the car to be all that interesting. It’s hard to get emotionally attached to some machine that doesn’t speak, or show any expression and the only sign that it’s ‘alive’ is through its car stunts. The fact that it has seemingly no limits to what it can do, at least driving wise, I felt worked against it. To create even the modicum of suspense, or believability, there needs to be some rules to what it can and cannot do and yet here it defies all probability like driving on the side of cliffs without falling off, or being able to somehow pull vehicles, that are much bigger and weigh more, around like it does during a ‘tug-of-war’ scene with a cop car that’s attempting to tow it. It’s even able to smash through walls without receiving any damage to its front-end. I’m okay with the car having a certain ‘personality’, but when the car is able to get out of any predicament in a seeming magical way then there really isn’t any intrigue at all.

The acting by Hayes, Powers, and Wynn are good and I was especially impressed with Wynn’s ability to essentially shout out all of his lines in a consistently snarly way and yet never get any laryngitis and he certainly adds energy to all of his moments. Berry though is so vanilla that he’s just plain boring. It might’ve worked better had he remained loyal to his uncle longer, but he sides with the two ladies so easily that his character quickly becomes quite benign to the point that it would’ve been more interesting to have just the two women, and the car of course, fighting the bad guys and his presence excised from the script completely.

The nightmare segment where Alonzo dreams of being attacked by not only Herbie, but several clones of Herbie whose front hood opens up to reveal a mouth with giant teeth, which also includes a take-off of King Kong, where Alonzo is on top of the Empire State Building as he fights off the Herbie’s that are flying in a circle around him is genuinely inspired and the best part of the movie. Everything else though falls painfully flat including the cheap special effects where the exterior of the firehouse looks like it’s a painting on a back-drop, which I’m sure it was, or the scene where Herbie goes up the Golden Gate Bridge, which you can plainly tell was a miniature model matted onto a picture because as the car goes back down it starts to lose its pixelation and fade-out and disappear into thin air.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 6, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes

Rated G

Director: Robert Stevenson

Studio: Buena Vista

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Farce, Movies for the Whole Family, Sequels

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Private Eyes (1980)

Posted on April 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

privateeyes

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Inept detectives investigate case.

Inspector Winship (Don Knotts) and Dr. Tart (Tim Conway) are two American detectives hired by Scotland Yard to investigate the murder of two people at a country estate in the 1920’s. Despite receiving a letter from one of the murdered victims asking them to investigate their murder the two prove to be quite inept. The various members of the mansion’s staff begin to turn-up dead one-by-one, which further deepens the mystery as a figure shrouded in a dark robe menaces the two as they investigate the case.

After the surprise box office success of The Prize Fighter, which became one of the most profitable films ever released by New World Pictures, screenwriter John Myhers, who had co-wrote that one, convinced Conway and Knotts to do another one. This one also did well earning a big profit, but for whatever reason it was the last of the Conway/Knotts comedies and they appeared together only once more in a brief cameo as two highway cops in Cannonball Run II. 

To some degree this is an improvement over their other one because here the entire cast is allowed to be funny and there’s none of the awkward, corny drama. Conway has a few good moments like when he stuffs his mouth full of apricots, or tries to cut a rope tied around Knotts’ hands with a sword that’s still connected to a knight’s armor. These two also get to reveal that they have a sex drive as they fight with each other over who gets to look through a tiny peephole to see the ravishing Mistress Phyillis, played by Trisha Noble, undress.

On the negative end a lot of the comedy falls flat. The opening animated bit, styled after the Inspector Clouseau Pink Panther films, is especially lame and should’ve been nixed. The running gag where the killer leaves notes where the last word never rhymes with the others is amusing for awhile, but gets overplayed. The stunts, pratfalls, and special effects are cheap and despite being filmed on-location at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina you really only get to see a few rooms of it making it seem like a waste.

Conway and Knotts can certainly be amusing at times, but they’ve played these types of characters for so long that they now have become predictable and boring. The Sherlock Holmes-styled parody has been done many, many times and this adds nothing new to the mix. It’s also hard to understand why if these guys are really this hopeless and everyone in the world seems to know it how they’d continue to find work and why Scotland Yard continues to give them employment and doesn’t just let them go. Inspector Clouseau was also very inept, but he always managed through irony and dumb luck to solve the case and come-out still looking like the ‘hero’ to the public, which only helped to bolster his career. These guys though don’t ever get anything right and are perpetually clueless, so why are they detectives to begin with?

A much better idea would’ve been to have placed the setting into the modern day especially since none of the humor, or pratfalls are contingent to the period. They could’ve played two guys who were out of work and saw an ad in the newspaper looking for amateur private eyes and they decide taking a stab at it as a ‘fresh start’. Then all of their bungling would make more sense and actually would’ve been funnier since the comedy would’ve had a more plausible setting.

Spoiler Alert!

Beyond just the bland comedy the case itself, particularly the final explanation, is illogical as it has one of the victims, Lord Morley, played by Fred Stuthman, coming back to life at the end as he essentially faked his own death. This though doesn’t make sense as we see a screaming newspaper headline at the beginning stating that two people were killed, or two bodies found when the car that Lord and Lady Morley were in drove into a lake, so if Lord Morley wasn’t one of the bodies then whose was it?

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 17, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Lang Elliot

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Buddy Movies, Comedy, Movies for the Whole Family, Mystery

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