Follow Me, Boys!

One of Walt Disney's best feature films from the Sixties, Follow Me Boys is a two hour tribute to the Boy Scouts and to one man's dedication to them. And the odd thing is that Fred MacMurray got into Scouting for the most basic of all human reasons.

Fred MacMurray arrives at this whistle stop of a Midwest town while with a traveling band in the Roaring Twenties. He's frustrated both trying to study law and play the saxophone for Ken Murray's band. On an impulse he's so taken with the town that he makes a decision right there to stay. He sees a help wanted sign in the window of Charlie Ruggles general store and Ruggles hires him right there. And of course there's the sight of Vera Miles working at the bank across the street that really makes him want to stay.

In fact at a town meeting MacMurray suggests that a Scout Troop be formed as an activity for the kids. When Elliott Reid who is Miles's boss at the bank and MacMurray's rival demurs saying he doesn't have the time to be a Scoutmaster, MacMurray moves right on in, mainly to make an impression with Miles.

After that the Scouts become his life and MacMurray like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life becomes the leading citizen of that town. He's the moulder of the youth and biggest influence on their character. And in one case he and Miles become foster parents to Kurt Russell and save him from what would have been a dissolute life.

There's a little bit of Boys Town in this film because there aren't any really bad boys here as Father Flanagan opined. But the main influence on this film adapted from a MacKinley Kantor story is Goodbye Mr. Chips. MacMurray does everything, but teach school for them.

Best scenes are when the kids are trapped in some army war games and through Boy Scout ingenuity come through it just fine.

Follow Me Boys gives Fred MacMurray one of his best roles in a Disney feature and it holds up well for today's audience.

What a shame that Hollywood can no longer put out movies as fine as this. "Follow Me Boys" is a most enjoyable film about a man with high ambitions finding himself very happy with a life so ordinary. Lem sought to someday be a lawyer but instead finds great fulfillment mentoring the boys of a small town. He takes the job of scout master to gain the attention of a local lady. His job as scout master turns out to be most fulfilling and he gets the girl! While Fred MacMurray does a fine job in the lead role, the film is not all about him. During the story you see what a positive effect his leadership has on the boys he mentors in the Boy Scouts. A very young and somewhat troubled boy named Whitey, played by Kurt Russell, joins Lem's scout troop and much like Lem finds it an unexpected life changing experience. "Follow Me Boys" is a very entertaining and very wholesome movie. It's a shame Hollywood, or even Disney, can't put out films like this anymore.

Just thought I would share what little I know about this movie.

Mackinlay Kantor was born in my hometown of Webster City, Iowa. He belonged to Boy Scout troop #17. He would have been 16 years old in 1920 so that gives you an idea when he was in scouts. My understanding is that he wrote the book to honor the Boy scouts and their leaders and he wanted to do so because of the great experiences he had a scout. I don't know how much of the movie is true but I do know there is at least one thing in the movie which reflects Webster City. It's nothing more than the name of a street but it's something anyway.

When I was a scout in the mid 70's we met in the upstairs of an old school building. All over the walls were posters which listed the winners of some of the annual contests that the troop held each year. Mackinlay Kantor's name was up there several times for having won several contests.

The name of my Scout leader in the 70's was a man named John McMurray. The man who founded Troop 17 in Webster City was a man named Murray McMurray. Their family has run a chick hatchery of all things in Webster City for years and it is still a thriving business today. Murray would have been Mackinlay Kantors Scout leader and I'm sure a big reason why he wrote the book. Murry, by the way, was a local banker who started the hatchery on the side. So he wasn't a musician like Lem was per say but his commitment to the town and to scouts is obviously reflected in the book and movie.

At this writing it is Memorial Day weekend 2006. There is a reunion being held this weekend in Webster City for all scouts who ever were in Troop 17. Among other things John McMurray will be speaking and concerning the movie Follow Me Boys? They will be be playing it twice for everybody there to go and see.

If you grew up in Webster City and were a scout this movie holds a little bit more than the usual emotions.

Follow Me, Boys! is a feel good film with an impressive cast. It's a snapshot of a time when there was a true sense of community that we rarely see today. A time when personal values carried more weight than profits.

The film delivers a powerful message of just how much difference a single person can make by leading through example. I think with today's media glut of flashy superstardom and wealth and narcissism, many us have lost sight of how much force there is in simply being a kind and honest person. I certainly walked away re-evaluating some of my motivations and behaviors. Just how do I affect the people around me on a daily basis?

The Walt Disney company serves up some memorable schmaltz with this adaptation of a book by MacKinlay Kantor. Fred MacMurray is inherently endearing as Lemuel Siddons, travelling with a jazz band in 1930 who decides to set down roots in a small town. Going to work as a store clerk, he has aspirations of being a lawyer, but he soon discovers what his true passion in life will be: leading a Boy Scout troop. And so he does, seeing them through the good and bad times for the next 20 years, and becoming a father figure to troubled Whitey (15 year old Kurt Russell, in his first Disney film), whose biological dad (Sean McClory) is a hopeless alcoholic.

Wonderful performances by all concerned - Lillian Gish plays a rich but generous local, Elliott Reid her cranky, greedy nephew, the radiant Vera Miles as Lem's sweetheart, Charlie Ruggles as kindly storekeeper John Everett Hughes, Parley Baer as the mayor - go a long way towards keeping this feature watchable for an admittedly overlong two hours and 12 minutes. The comedic sequence where Lem and his current troop get taken aback by soldiers playing war games doesn't really add anything to the story, though, and could have been taken out without detracting from it. Overall, the film IS very corny, but it's delivered with such square-jawed conviction that the viewer won't much mind being manipulated so frequently.

A nice depiction of small town America from the '30s to the '50s also helps, along with a welcome sense of humour at times. (Lem's troop in the '30s includes kids with such colourful nicknames as "Hoodoo" and "Beefy".) And it is refreshing to see a scrupulously wholesome family film inspire its viewers, young and old, with its portrayal of the Boy Scout tradition.

The excellent cast includes such other performers as Luana Patten, Ken Murray, Donald May (as the grown-up version of the Kurt Russell character), Steve Franken, William Reynolds, Richard Bakalyan, Willis Bouchey, and Adam Williams.

"Follow Me, Boys" will be too sentimental for some viewers to take, but others will find it utterly delightful.

Seven out of 10.