So Dear to My Heart is a combination of live action and animation that Disney released after their first such effort, Song Of The South. While that film was ingratiating chiefly due to the entertaining stories Uncle Remus tells, both the live action and the sparse animated sequences in this one fall flat. The live action stuff just isn’t terribly interesting (What? Danny the black sheep ran away again? Yawn. I’ll go right out and look for him in the swamp. Again.) and the animated stuff is forgettable pap that doesn’t satisfactorily advance the farm boy/sheep love story we are all here to see. Continue reading “So Dear to My Heart (1948)”
Category: Disney
Treasure of Matecumbe (1976)
On the one hand, this movie is about a couple of kids in search of buried treasure in the Florida swamps. On the other hand this movie sucks.
I have to admit that I was suckered in by the title of this Disney movie and the poster for it. The one thing I overlooked though was that it came out in the 1970s. Continue reading “Treasure of Matecumbe (1976)”
Kidnapped (1960)
I had been hoping that Kidnapped was a movie along the lines of Treasure Island – you know something involving a guy with one leg and a murderous little kid who didn’t fret over stabbing some scurvy sea dog in the face when the chips were down.
What I got was Oscar-winner (not for this movie obviously) Peter Finch hamming it up as Alan Breck Stewart and Hawaii Five-0‘s James MacArthur as David acting all despondent after having to plug some scallywag while he and Stewart were trying to take over a ship. Continue reading “Kidnapped (1960)”
The Million Dollar Duck (1971)
Dean Jones, who appeared in every single movie the Walt Disney Company made from 1965-1975, stars as a scientist who is trying to teach animals stuff. For reasons never adequately explained, he is fixated on trying to teach an obviously dull-witted duck how to do something. His boss ridicules him for this, but once you get a gander at Dean’s home life, you begin to understand why he feels a duty to try and help the brain damaged of the animal kingdom. Continue reading “The Million Dollar Duck (1971)”
The Ghost of Cypress Swamp (1977)
The poet/philosopher Tupac once opined “a coward dies a thousand deaths… a soldier dies but once.” You know who else only dies but once in The Ghost Of Cypress Swamp? Lonny’s brave dog who got eaten by the evil panther named Weakfoot while the wimpy Lonny stood around doing nothing to save him! Continue reading “The Ghost of Cypress Swamp (1977)”
Escapade in Florence (1962)
The movies culled from re-editing multi-part episodes of the old Disneyland TV series are a mixed bag. Some of them like Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow stand with any of Walt’s theatrical projects in terms of story, production values, and execution. Others, such as Mystery In Dracula’s Castle suffer from weak scripts and a decidedly workmanlike effort both in front of and behind the camera. Escapade In Florence falls somewhere in between these two extremes as it’s hampered by a lousy script, but is made bearable by the location shooting in Italy and the winning performances of stars Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello. Continue reading “Escapade in Florence (1962)”
Johnny Tremain (1957)
I always suspected that those snobby British goons who tried to stifle all our basic human rights by laying a big tax on our imported tea were defeated through the interference of some plucky kids.
Since the novel this movie is based on won a Newbery Medal, I have to assume that it’s the God’s honest truth and that the colonists were such great guys that after they stormed the ships in Boston Harbor and dumped all the tea overboard, that they then took time to swab the decks and generally cleaned up the boat when they finished with their consumer protest. Continue reading “Johnny Tremain (1957)”