The Magic of Lassie (1978)

The last of several films written by brothers Richard and Robert Sherman, better known as the tunesmiths of such projects as Mary Poppins (1964), family adventure The Magic of Lassie bludgeons the enduring canine franchise with cutesy songs, manipulative plotting, and the sentimental casting of beloved actors from the past. Nearly every heart-tugging cliché you can imagine is represented here, from crying children to scenes of a beautiful dog in danger. And then there are the songs. Whereas good Sherman tunes are innocent fun, bad ones—the only type on display here—are like power drills to the cerebral cortex. The mawkish plot revolves around kind-hearted geezer Clovis (James Stewart), who runs a small winery while raising his grandchildren, Chris (Michael Sharrett) and Kelly (Stephanie Zimbalist). Lassie is their pet. One day, evil businessman Jamison (Pernell Roberts) asks to buy the vineyard. Clovis refuses. Yet something about Lassie seems familiar to Jamison. Turns out that Jamison breeds champion Collies, and that Lassie a runaway from a past litter. You get the idea—Jamison seizes Lassie, heartbroken Chris leaves home to look for the dog, and Lassie escapes Jamison’s grip, beginning a perilous journey home. It’s all a prelude to the inevitable tear-filled reunions. And the scenes featuring original Sherman songs are so sickly-sweet that some viewers might experience diabetic shock. Mickey Rooney, who appears in a dumb subplot about an aging wrestler and his manager, talk-sings a couple of numbers, as does Stewart. Worse, both Debby and Pat Boone warble tunes, though neither appears onscreen.

The Magic of Lassie: LAME

The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella (1976)

          First the good news. This lavishly produced British musical is gorgeous to behold, with elaborate costumes and grand locations and luminous photography. Simple effects are used to put across the supernatural elements of the iconic fable that provides the film’s storyline, and there’s a certain Masterpiece Theatre polish to the whole enterprise. Additionally, the supporting performances are solid, with reliable UK character actor Michael Hordern’s droll work as an uptight monarch worthy of special mention. Now the bad news. Gemma Craven is appealing but forgettable as Cinderella; Richard Chamberlain is miscast as Prince Charming (actually, “Prince Edward”) because the role demands greater dancing and singing abilities than he can muster; and the film’s original songs, by Disney stalwarts Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman, are bland at best, insipid at worst.

          Yet the worst fault of The Slipper and the Rose is bloat. The movie sprawls across 143 endless minutes, and more than an hour of nonsense transpires before Cinderella makes her legendary entrance to the Prince’s grand ballroom. Considering that nothing in the film elevates the characters above the usual one-dimensional archetypes, the only reasons for the picture’s absurd length are the songs, which don’t earn their keep. To be clear, there’s nothing outrageously bad about this take on the famous story, and it’s possible to imagine some viewers falling under the piece’s gentle spell. That said, nothing here truly excites the imagination.

          Set in a mythical realm patterned after Europe circa the Romantic Era, the picture explores Prince Edward’s ambivalence about entering into an arranged marriage. Meanwhile, Cinderella endures indignities at the hands of her cruel stepmother and stepsister, until a fairy godmother intervenes to dress Cinderella in regal finery for a royal “bride-finding ball.” Though he’s expected to form a politically advantageous union, Prince Edward falls for mysterious stranger Cinderella, then uses the shoe that she accidentally leaves behind to track her down. You know the drill. The filmmakers, including executive producer David Frost (of TV-hosting fame) and director Bryan Forbes, demonstrate some resourcefulness—as in the scene of dancers in mice costumes pirouetting across the screen—and the gag about the king proposing a tax on snobbery approaches wit. Still, it’s all just glossy, nonthreatening pap, and the only lasting image is the questionable sight of Chamberlain’s character doing gymnastics in the royal family crypt during a musical number.

The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella: FUNKY

Snoopy Come Home (1972) & Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977)

          Introduced in 1950, Charles M. Schulz’s newspaper strip Peanuts was a beloved institution by the time the franchise expanded to include animated TV specials in the ’60s. The brand grew further with the release of A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), the first in a series of animated theatrical features that ran in tandem with the ongoing TV specials. The second feature, Snoopy Come Home, is noteworthy in that it forefronts the canine character Snoopy, known to millions as the intelligent and resourceful companion to kindhearted but long-suffering franchise protagonist Charlie Brown. Despite suffering from a questionable musical score—more on that later—Snoopy Come Home epitomizes many of the best qualities in Schulz’s fictional universe.

          Directed by Bill Meléndez, who helmed most of the classics Peanuts specials, Snoopy Come Home begins with vignettes juxtaposing the misadventures of the Peanuts gang with scenes in which Snoopy gets the sense that he’s no longer needed. The beagle is particularly incensed by the intrusion of “No Dogs Allowed” signs throughout his community, provoking Snoopy to whip out his familiar typewriter and pen irate letters to local officials. Later, Snoopy receives word that his former owner, a young girl named Lila, has been hospitalized and wants to see her old pal. Snoopy announces his plans to leave Charlie Brown’s home, which occasions a tear-filled going-away party—easily one of the saddest scenes ever presented in a Peanuts movie or special. Will Snoopy come home? Even if the answer to that question is never in doubt, the movie is full of teachable and tender moments, as well as the gentle humor for which Peanuts is justly famous. In fact, had this storyline been employed for a TV special, Snoopy Come Home could have become a classic. Stretched to feature length, the piece has a hit-and-miss feel.

          For every sweet scene depicting the interaction between Snoopy and humans, there’s a dreary montage set to one of the many songs composed for the film by Richard and Robert Sherman, the songwriting duo famous for Mary Poppins (1964) and other Disney musicals. Gifted as they are at crafting catchy lyrics and melodies, the Shermans often can’t resist maudlin extremes. (Actual lyric: “Happy laughter is contagious!”) There’s a huge gulf between the juvenile quality of the Shermans’ songs and the sophistication of Schulz’s script. (While playing Monopoly, the formidable Lucy Van Pelt proclaims, “I’m going to destroy you economically, Charlie Brown!”) Ultimately, the good stuff in Snoopy Come Home outweighs the dubious stuff, especially because the movie perfectly captures what melancholy feels like.

          The next Peanuts feature, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, lacks the emotional high points of its predecessor. A lighthearted adventure romp filled with character-driven humor, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown features the Peanuts gang attending a summer camp and participating in a lengthy rafting race. Once the race begins, the Peanuts boys occupy one raft, the Peanuts girls pilot another one, a gang of grade-school bullies rides in a third raft, and Snoopy and his avian pal, Woodstock, man the final raft. Once again written by Schulz and directed by Meléndez, the picture has sensitivity and warmth, portraying bullies as losers whose cravenness will ultimately lead to their undoing, and the story is told from a kids’-eye-view perspective. The vignettes with Snoopy sharing wilderness adventures with Woodstock are particularly droll—at one point, Woodstock climbs atop a sleeping, snow-covered Snoopy’s nose and builds a ski resort before Snoopy wakes. Similarly, the running gag about iron-willed Peppermint Patty ruling the Peanuts ladies by faux democracy (“All right, Marcy, time for the secret ballots!”) is quite sly. Yet the storyline is predictable and the villains are simplistic, so even though Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown is slicker, Snoopy Come Home has more impact.

          After the 1980 feature Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!) completed the original Schulz/Meléndez theatrical cycle, the franchise soldiered on with decades of TV specials, and then a brand-new theatrical feature, the CGI-rendered The Peanuts Movie, debuted in 2015.

Snoopy Come Home: GROOVY

Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown: FUNKY

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

          As most people recall from childhood, A.A. Milne’s classic character Winnie the Pooh is a loveably simple bear who lives in a fantasy realm called the Hundred Acre Wood. Along with animal friends including Eeyore the Donkey, Kanga and her baby Roo, Owl, Piglet, and the irrepressible Tigger—as well as human companion Christopher Robin—Pooh is the device by which Milne told sweet stories about devotion, friendship, and love. Given this combination of cute-animal whimsy and inspirational themes, Pooh was a natural subject for cartoon adaptation by the Walt Disney Company. Disney initially released three theatrical shorts, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974), which were compiled—along with a small amount of new material—for this feature.

          Since Milne’s books were anthologies, the compilation of the shorts works exceptionally well for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, with one “chapter” flowing seamlessly into the next. Additionally, because the vignettes integrate clever references to their literary sources—shifts between scenes are often depicted by cutting to book pages featuring an illustration that becomes the first shot of the next scene, and so on—The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh gracefully balances animated entertainment with a visual celebration of reading. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is lovingly designed, with gentle hand strokes visible in character delineation and wonderful washes of color permeating backgrounds. (While Disney didn’t retain the exact character designs from E.H. Shepard, who illustrated the original Pooh books, Disney’s style honors the spirit of Shepard’s work.)

          Predictably, the one area in which Disney succumbs to sticky-sweet excess is sound, since the studio created the aural aspect of the Hundred Acre Wood from scratch. Voice actor Sterling Holloway incarnates Pooh as the spirit of childlike innocence, just as John Fiedler (as Piglet) and Clint Howard (as Roo) personify adorableness with the squeaky little voices they provide for their characters. (It helps that narrator Sebastian Cabot provides a solidly adult sound for balance, and that voice actor Paul Winchell, as Tigger, channels eccentricity and exuberance instead of mere cuteness.) The music, by Mary Poppins tunesmiths Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman, also registers quite high on the glucose scale, especially with such silly wordplay as “Hip Hip Pooh-Ray” (the title of one of the Shermans’ songs).

          As for the “many adventures” depicted in the film, they’re mostly slight contrivances designed to showcase endearing characters. In order, Pooh gets into trouble while trying to score his favorite snack, honey; the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood face a torrential rainstorm; and Tigger makes mischief with his incessant bouncing. Adults may find 74 minutes of this stuff a bit hard to take in one sitting, but The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is about as edifying as children’s entertainment gets, in terms of exposing young viewers to wholesome themes of belonging, community, and companionship.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: GROOVY

Charlotte’s Web (1973)

          Even cynics cry once in a while. For instance, one of my surefire triggers for waterworks is Charlotte’s Web, the miraculous children’s book by E.B. White that was originally published in 1952. A bittersweet story about friendship and mortality, Charlotte’s Web presents grown-up themes in a magical context, and the ending of the story slays me today as much as it did when I first read the book during childhood. I mention the power of White’s story to explain why I cut this animated adaptation a lot of slack, even though the film contains sentimental excesses that drift far afield from the melancholy textures of the source material. Speaking in the broadest terms, the filmmakers present White’s story intact—retaining even the most downbeat elements—so unnecessary filigrees such as boisterous musical numbers are merely interruptions. The basic narrative is so powerful that nothing can fully diminish its impact.

          For those unfamiliar with the tale, the hero of the story is a pig named Wilbur. He’s born on a farm, but because he’s a runt, he’s plucked from the litter for quick slaughter. The farmer’s daughter, a young girl named Fern, pleads for Wilbur’s life and is given responsibility for raising him. As a result, he grows to maturity with a gentle demeanor since all he’s ever known is TLC. Alas, Wilbur gets sold to a neighboring farm, where he’s again lined up for slaughter. Yet Wilbur’s sweet nature endears him to other animals on his new farm, including a sophisticated brown spider named Charlotte A. Cavatica. Eager to protect her new friend, Charlotte spins a web containing the words “some pig,” which transforms Wilbur into a small-town celebrity. This special relationship continues through to a heartbreaking finale that says volumes about the cyclical nature of life. I’m biased, of course, but I would go so far as to say that Charlotte’s Web is one of the loveliest stories created by an American author in the 20th century.

          Animation was definitely the right means for making a screen version of Charlotte’s Web, since it’s hard to imagine cozying up to a live-action arachnid. Alas, budget-conscious production company Hanna-Barbera never aimed for the same level of visual beauty as the folks at Disney, so this version of Charlotte’s Web is perfunctory in terms of images and motion. The character designs are fine, and the background settings get the job done, but the look of Charlotte’s Web is only slightly better than that of a standard Saturday-morning cartoon from the ’70s. Furthermore, the musical score is palatable at best. While songwriting brothers Richard B. Sherman and Robert M. Sherman (of Mary Poppins fame) fill their tunes with heart and playful language, their style doesn’t fit with the humble elegance of White’s storytelling. (Similarly, narrator Rex Allen’s aw-shucks line deliveries add a cornpone, Will Rogers-influenced flavor that lowers the intelligence level of the material.)

          Happily, the best elements of this movie are the most important—the vocal performances. Henry Gibson, of all people, finds a kindhearted but not sticky-sweet pocket for Wilbur’s speaking voice, capturing the character’s innocence. Paul Lynde channels his queeny bitchery into the comic-relief role of Templeton, a rat who serves as Charlotte’s de facto errand boy. And Debbie Reynolds is just about perfect as Charlotte—amiable, sad, and wise all at once. She also gets to sing the most delicate song the Shermans wrote for the peace, a philosophical number called “Mother Earth and Father Time.”

          Perhaps because this movie was the means by which many people first discovered White’s luminous story, the Hanna-Barbera version of Charlotte’s Web has enjoyed a long life in the marketplace, even earning a straight-to-video sequel, Charlotte’s Web 2: Wilbur’s Great Adventure, in 2003. (The sequel featured an all-new story, because White never wrote a follow-up book.) A live-action version of Charlotte’s Web was released in 2006, with an all-star cast including Julia Roberts and Robert Redford voicing animal characters rendered with CGI.

Charlotte’s Web: GROOVY

The AristoCats (1970)

          Walt Disney Productions’ first animated feature of the ’70s, The AristoCats is an old-fashioned charmer in the company’s classic tradition. Filled with amusing characterizations, bouncy songs, meticulous illustration, and unvarnished sweetness, this was the last animated feature authorized by Walt Disney himself, although he died before production began.
          Offering a feline twist on the studio’s canine classic 101 Dalmatians (1961), the picture takes place in 1910 Paris, where retired opera singer Madame Bonfamille lives with her cats and her seemingly loyal butler, Edgar. When Edgar discovers that “Madame” plans to leave her estate to her pets, he kidnaps the animals and dumps them in a remote field, starting the felines on a long journey home. Along the way, the cats bond with assorted critters who help the heroes foil Edgar’s scheme.

          As the title suggests, the main contrivance is that the cats inherited refinement from their owner. Thus, when feline matriarch Duchess (voiced by Eva Gabor) and her three kittens end up in adrift the world outside their stately home, they charm everyone they meet and discover the plebian pleasures enjoyed by vagabonds like Thomas O’Malley (voiced by Phil Harris), an alley cat who falls for Duchess.
          Although the vocal styles are a bit of a mishmash, with some performers speaking in European accents and others using American intonations, The AristoCats feels unified in the most important respects. The animals can only be heard speaking by other animals, and the choice of wildlife is germane to the story’s milieu.

          Moreover, the soundtrack entertainingly juxtaposes the faux-classical music of Madame’s world with the low-rent jump-and-jive of O’Malley’s environment. The movie’s centerpiece song, “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat,” is presented in an extended concert/party scene featuring O’Malley’s streetwise pal, Scat Cat (voiced by Scatman Crothers), and the sequence is an explosion of musical and visual energy with bright colors and dynamic graphics flashing in time with the music.

          Although that number was written by Floyd Huddleston and Al Riker, the best tunes in The AristoCats are those penned by songwriting siblings Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, of Mary Poppins fame. Their title song, performed over the opening credits by a droll Maurice Chevalier in the last recording of his life, and the Shermans’ character-defining song for Duchess and her kittens, “Scales and Arpeggios,” feature the brothers’ deft wordplay at its best.

          Gabor and Harris provide endearing vocal portrayals, as do the various character actors and children voicing the supporting roles, so even though the picture gets a bit carried away with peripheral comedy bits (like the frivolous scenes of Edgar battling a pair of pesky bloodhounds), The AristoCats is a winning exhibition of the beloved Disney style.

The AristoCats: GROOVY

Tom Sawyer (1973) & Huckleberry Finn (1974)

          The sibling songwriting duo of Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman had a huge impact on family entertainment in the ’60s, writing songs for projects including the blockbuster musical Mary Poppins (1964) and Disney’s theme parks (the Shermans wrote “It’s a Small World”). Their dominance of the family-film game ebbed in the ’70s, but not before they expanded their creative purview to include screenwriting. The Shermans wrote the scripts and a brace of original songs for Tom Sawyer, adapted from Mark Twain’s 1876 novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn, adapted from Twain’s revered 1884 sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; both films were produced by Arthur P. Jacobs, whose previous entry into the realm of movie musicals was 1967’s super-expensive Doctor Dolittle.

          Given their big-budget pedigree, it’s unsurprising that both Twain adaptations look fantastic, boasting authentic production design and slick photography. However, as Jacobs discovered with the disastrous Dolittle, musicals are all about the songs, and the Twain adaptations are mostly tone-deaf. Plus, although the underlying narratives are timeless, the Shermans make such vapid adaptive choices that the stories end up seeming contrived and stiff.

          Tom Sawyer is the better of the two movies, but only marginally so. Johnny Whitaker (from TV‘s Family Affair) plays Tom in all of the familiar adventures: convincing his friends to paint a fence; witnessing a murder with his buddy, Huck Finn (Jeff East); falling in love with a pretty young neighbor (Jodie Foster); testifying about the murder in court; and enduring a scary underground confrontation with crazed killer Injun Joe (Kunu Hank). Whitaker is cute and enthusiastic, but not skillful enough to create the illusion of Tom’s preternatural cleverness. Therefore, the dramatic heavy lifting falls to screen veterans Celeste Holm (as Tom’s long-suffering Aunt Polly) and Warren Oates (as Tom’s drunkard friend Mutt). As for the songs, the Shermans’ style of cutesy wordplay and syrupy sentimentality clashes with Twain’s thorny sarcasm. The underscore is actually better than the tunes, thanks to the participation of composer John Williams, who earned an Oscar nomination for his work but did not return for the sequel. Ultimately, the most irritating aspect of Tom Sawyer is that it’s decent whenever people aren’t singing, because the plot is full of exciting events and the production values are terrific.

          Ironically, Huckleberry Finn has the key element that eluded Tom Sawyer (a great song), but it’s a lesser film in every other regard. Part of the problem is the odd plotting of Twain’s novel, which has confounded literary critics for generations; though ostensibly the brilliant parable of runaway ragamuffin Huck (East) bonding with runaway slave Jim (Paul Winfield), the story is episodic and burdened with an infuriating third act (which the Shermans omit in favor of something more poetic). As in the first picture, East is competent but not special, and he’s pretty much the whole show, since the formidable Winfield is kept offscreen for a great deal of the movie. Even the presence of lively supporting player Harvey Korman (as a con man who calls himself “The King”) isn’t enough to break the overall tedium. On the plus side is that great song, “Freedom,” which is sung over the opening credits by Roberta Flack. Although “Freedom” eventually gets buried in maudlin strings, the song is a simple reflection of the story’s main theme, and therefore a welcome musical change from the gimmicky trifles that permeate these tiresome films.

Tom Sawyer: FUNKY

Huckleberry Finn: LAME

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

          It’s plain that the folks at Walt Disney Productions were trying to re-create the magic of their ’60s megahit Mary Poppins when they made Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but the latter film has enough charm and imagination to feel like more than just a retread. As was Poppins, this picture is an epic-length musical adventure about a magical woman assuming guardianship of a group of children, and it features an extended sequence blending animation and live action. However, the similarities don’t end there: David Tomlinson, who played the father in Mary Poppins, gets promoted to the male lead in Bedknobs, and the sibling songwriting team of Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman composed tunes for both movies.

          Bedknobs is set in England during World War II, when singleton Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury) becomes the temporary caretaker for a trio of displaced London orphans. The kids try to escape during their first night in the Price family castle, of which Eglantine is the only resident, then decide to stay when they spy her flying on a broomstick—it turns out she’s an apprentice witch, so the kids strong-arm her into providing cushy treatment by threatening to expose her secret. Soon enough, the whole gang is off on an adventure because Eglantine’s supernatural correspondence course abruptly ends before the final lesson, and she’s determined to get the final spell she needs to become a full-fledged witch.

          The crew hops onto an enchanted transporting bed (the titular knob is the key that starts the bed’s magic working) and treks to London. There, they find Eglantine’s erstwhile educator, con man Emelius Browne (Tomlinson). Amazed that one of his students has real magical ability, Browne reveals that he copied the spells out of an old book but never believed they would work, so the crew’s next adventure is looking for the pages missing from Browne’s copy of the book. This leads to a run-in with a shady book collector, plus a long interlude in the (animated) realm of Naboombu, a land of talking animals ruled by a blowhard lion king. After these amusing cartoon high jinks, the gang returns to Eglantine’s castle, with the elusive spell in their possession, just in time to foil an invasion by an advance squadron of Nazis.

          All of the usual Disney tropes are in evidence, from clever children to silly adults, and from goofy slapstick to sweet songs. So, while Bedknobs doesn’t break any new ground, it boasts playful wit. Lansbury is endearing (and far less sickly-sweet than Mary Poppins star Julie Andrews); Tomlinson is an enjoyably blustery boob; the kids aren’t egregiously cutesy; and the showdown with the Nazis is a special-effects delight—Eglantine animates museum artifacts, creating a legion of hollow uniforms and suits of armor. These strengths make Bedknobs palatable for both adults and the film’s intended audience.

        FYI, the picture hit some speed bumps on the way to theaters. After premiering at a length of nearly three hours, it was cut to two hours for its initial U.S. release, then trimmed further for a 1979 reissue. (Costar Roddy McDowall was the biggest victim of the edits, disappearing almost completely from the shortened versions.) In the 1990s, a 139-minute version approximating the original cut was assembled for DVD. As a result of all of this backing-and-forthing, the movie is now widely available as a two-hour feature and as a two-and-a-half hour epic.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks: GROOVY