The Million Dollar Duck

As a kid in the early seventies I remember clips from $1,000,000 duck being shown on Disney Time and Screen Test. I think it's a head nod to a certain bad tempered duck who made Disney more then $1,000,000. It's interesting to see Tony Roberts in something not directed by Woody Allen. I first saw it in full in the mid -seventies when the BBC showed it on Christmas Eve (that was the days when Disney was very grudging about their stuff being shown to anything other than a full cinema audience). A good film, a satire on greed and the American Dream.

It is fashionable to rag and bash this movie. The points are understood. Take 1930's cornball humor, mix in the physical comedy of the Stooges and Keystone Cops, with the backdrop of a story from Antiquity, the goose who laid the golden eggs. Place it in modernity, being more the generic mid 20th Century with a lawyer and US Treasury folks. It's 1971, but the movie appears to ignore the changing outside world. The 'far out dudes' Wadlo boys give a wink to the Hippy Era, but not much else. It's small town California, a point which is made deliberately, which ironically harkens back to then President Nixon's growing up. Gold and small towns, one only can imagine if any super seniors from rural America ever saw this at the time. Gold was no giver to prosperity in their eyes, Williams Jennings Bryan and 'free silver' were all the rage.

The movie suffers from terrible timing. A huge shift in taste was sweeping the country, as this is more in tune with the rural sitcoms of the late 60's, recently purged, and less with the new 'dramadies' of 'All in the Family' and 'MASH.' If you remember 'Get Smart,' you might forgive some of the 'cheese' here. The silly chase scene at the end, who does that in a movie ? Hummm, 'The French Connection' (picture of the year in 1971) ? This wasn't a hip time to be a young kid, I'm of the X'er generation. It wasn't like the late 50's/early 60's (Boomers) or the 90's (Millennials), time periods hailed for Disney creativity.

If you're reading this, you probably have some appreciation for the humanities...some history and motifs of literature. Let's look at this differently. First, the characters. Sandy Duncan as the flighty housewife sends the critics into orbit. 'All in the Family' used this characterization as satire, here and even in 1971, it's uncomfortable. Let's say that's just a misunderstood bit of humor and exaggeration. For wide acceptance...a miss, ok. Joe Flynn checks in with his staple uptight bureaucrat as the Treasury agent. Dean Jones, the 'everyman' father and family man. An image he would work with on other more successful Disney films. Tony Roberts launched his film career as his slippery lawyer, works well for even modern audiences. The rest of the cast is rounded out with some longtime Hollywood figures, mostly of the past.

Some imagery and motifs. Mrs. Dooley gets a phone call from the bank one morning, because she's 'overdrawn' on her checking account. A crusty old 'banker' threatens to call her husband. Charlie the duck...offers a deposit. At the teller window, a balding middle aged guy with a three piece suit. Not too far fetched for small town banking in the late 60's, circa 1970. Not that unlike the experience of their parents in the 40's. Those old guys probably cut the Dooley's mortgage years ago. Fast forward thirty years later ? ATM's, online banking, mortgages cut from online services, tellers 20-something ladies with a blouse from Target and if you ask an officer at the bank too many questions besides hours and building address, they'll reach for the phone and call the 1-800 number. Later in the film, with the Feds ponder keeping the golden Charlie a secret, the first foreigner on the montage is French, notorious in the era for collecting US gold to settle trade debts. When the Dooleys and Fred arrange chase, the call Katie gets is on...a RED phone. Later, when the Feds are caught up in a traffic accident and announce to the crowd they're with the government, one patron says, 'Government ! No wonder you got everything all loused up !' A cynicism more fitting to the late 70's rather than on the heels of the 'go/go 60s'

Lastly the gold politics. We're in small town California here. Although McKinley's 'gold bugs' won California against Bryan 'free silver,' in 1896, gold was of the New York bankers and big city industrialists. Worker bees and farmers chose inflation supported 'free silver.' But, in 1971, the gold standard was on its deathbed. Mr. Nixon, who 'appears' in the movie, would take us off the gold standard entirely within a few years. So, own all the gold you want, as we go total fiat currency, a world none of the creators really lived through. The yellow sports car would never go for 7,995 dollars again.

And it turns out that a few years later two University of Michigan professors managed to create pure 24-karat gold in the laboratory in 2012, and in 2020 a group of Swiss scientists managed to create an incredibly light type of 18-karat gold, the gold losing its value. In 3, 2, 1... Very cute movie, the family trio, dad, mom and son are cute, the lawyer friend too, and the sustainable evildoers... Cute...

I sat down in 2021 to watch the 1971 Disney movie "The Million Dollar Duck". This is my second time to watch it actually. I remember watching it back in my childhood, probably in the early 1980s, but I could only vaguely recall the movie. So as I had the opportunity to sit down in 2021 to watch it, of course I did so.

This movie is still very entertaining and watchable, even now 50 years after the movie was initially released. So writers Ted Key and Roswell Rogers definitely did a good job with the script here, and that is quite the accomplishment which makes for a truly timeless classic movie.

"The Million Dollar Duck" is a twist on the classic tale of fowl being able to produce a golden egg. So it is a familiar storyline, but with added contents. And I will say that the Disney fingerprint definitely is showing on this 1971 movie. There was just something profoundly enjoyable about the movies Disney made back in the day.

The cast in "The Million Dollar Duck" definitely was good, and of course having Dean Jones in the lead role certainly made for a good movie, as he had a great track record with his older Disney movies. So if you enjoyed him in other of Disney's movies, you will also enjoy him in "The Million Dollar Duck".

This was definitely a movie well worth taking the time to sit down and watch again, and it is a movie that has something to offer to the entire family.

My rating of "The Million Dollar Duck" lands on a six out of ten stars.

That eternal Disney lead, Dean Jones, plays a harried scientist named Albert Dooley who's constantly sweating out bills. Then fortune arrives in an odd way. He's brought home a research animal named "Charlie", a white duck to whom Alberts' son Jimmy (Lee Montgomery) becomes attached. But Charlie was exposed to radiation after wandering into a laboratory, and now is capable of laying golden eggs. So naturally Albert and his lawyer buddy Fred (Tony Roberts) get dollar signs in their eyes. But their actions catch the attention of federal agents, led by James Gregory as Rutledge, who want to know how these private citizens are coming into possession of this gold.

"The Million Dollar Duck" is standard live-action Disney fare from this period. It's not a classic of its kind, rarely producing any true belly laughs, but it's amiable enough and amusing enough to keep it watchable for 93 minutes. Like many a Disney comedy, it builds up to a frantic chase sequence that does get over the top in a reasonably funny way. The movie does deserve some credit, though, for revolving around not a dog or cat but a different species. And the duck herself is endearing, and the human cast goes through their paces with efficiency. Joe Flynn is an irritable treasury agent and next-door neighbour, Sandy Duncan the somewhat air-headed, miniskirt-wearing wife / mother, Jack Kruschen is Alberts' boss at his lab, and Virginia Vincent plays Flynn's wife. Per Disney's style, familiar character actors in small parts do perk things up a little: Arthur Hunnicutt, Frank Wilcox, Bing Russell, Frank Cady, Hal Smith, Edward Andrews, Bernard Fox, Arthur Franz, Bruno VeSota, etc.

While never really inspired, there's enough good-natured mayhem here to make this palatable viewing for the intended family audience.

Six out of 10.