It is incredible that this hopeless mess of a movie was Robert Stevenson's follow-up to Mary Poppins! It is episodic to the point of incoherence, the 'monkey' of the title (actually a chimp, of course) barely appears, Annette's charm was wearing thin, and the sets, music and general production level are poor indeed. Tommy Kirk appears to be barely awake throughout much of the film; he was probably wondering why he ever signed that long-term contract with Uncle Walt. Worse is seeing Arthur O'Connell, Leon Ames and other dependable character actors flailing away with what must be one of the worst scripts ever churned out by Disney. This is another of those pictures that gave 'family films' a bad name. Of minor cultural interest is the appearance of the Beach Boys, who function as a back-up band for Annette during the opening credits! They then disappear and are never seen again another example of the filmmakers' total lack of interest in anything that might sustain interest from beginning to end.
