Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Emil And The Detectives

Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Emil And The Detectives

On paper, Emil And The Detectives makes total sense as a Disney film. It’s based on a perennially popular young adult novel. It features an ensemble of kids taking on a trio of over-the-top, cartoony bad guys. And later in the decade, these kinds of lightweight mystery/heist/caper pictures would become the studio’s bread and butter. But in practice, Emil And The Detectives is a sluggish affair that never fully delivers the fun promised by its animated opening title sequence.

Author Erich Kästner was no stranger to the Disney studio. His novel Lottie And Lisa formed the basis for the Hayley Mills blockbuster The Parent Trap. Emil And The Detectives was published in 1929 and had already been adapted to film in Germany, England and Japan. The 1931 German version was an early screenwriting credit for Billy Wilder. Walt’s version would be written by A.J. Carothers, who had previously handled the script for Miracle Of The White Stallions.

Director Peter Tewksbury was new to Disney, although he’d worked with Disney Legend Fred MacMurray on his sitcom, My Three Sons. Emil And The Detectives would turn out to be his only Disney credit. After this, he worked primarily in TV and directed a couple of Elvis Presley’s later movies.

The story is pretty simple. Young Emil (Bryan Russell) is sent to visit his grandmother in Berlin. His mother gives him 400 marks to deliver to Grandma, pinning it to the inside of his coat so he won’t lose it. Unfortunately, she does this in full view of Grundeis (Heinz Schubert), a “skrink” in a loud checkered suit and a bowler hat.

What, you may well ask, is a skrink? According to the film (which represents the only recorded use of the term, as near as I can tell), it’s a low, dishonest, disreputable person, often a criminal although not necessarily. Variations of the expression get used throughout the movie, as in “my skrinky sister”. By the end, you’ll wish you had a time machine to go prevent A.J. Carothers from trying to make “skrink” happen.

Anyway, Grundeis hops on board the bus and finagles his way into the seat next to Emil. He pulls out a pocket watch and hypnotizes Emil into falling asleep. Once that’s done, he picks Emil’s pocket and hops off the bus. If he’d been a better hypnotist, he probably would have gotten away with it. But Emil wakes up the second the door closes, so he gets off the bus and follows Grundeis to a nearby café.

While he’s spying on Grundeis, Emil meets Gustav (Roger Mobley), a street kid who seems to have a hustle for all occasions. When Emil explains the situation, Gustav whips out a business card introducing himself as a private detective. Since Emil has no proof that Grundeis stole his money, the police are useless. So Emil hires Gustav and his team of boy detectives to take the case.

Their one clue is a note Grundeis tried to destroy setting a time and place for a meeting that evening. Gustav saved most of it but the part with the name of the hotel got away (it went “skrinking off down the gutter”), so they split up to stake out all the hotels in the area. While this is going on, Emil sends a note to his grandmother, assuring her that he’s okay. But the message is intercepted by Emil’s cousin, Pony (Cindy Cassell), a cub reporter for her school newspaper. Sensing there’s a story in this, Pony trails the messenger boy back to Emil.

Grundeis meets two other skrinks, The Baron (Walter Slezak) and Müller (Peter Ehrlich). The three skrinks have hatched a plan to rob a bank by tunneling into it from the ruins of an old building nearby. Emil and Gustav spend the night at the ruins but the next morning, Emil is discovered and taken prisoner by the Baron. With their client missing, the detectives decide it’s finally time to call in the police. The cops show them a number of mug shots, one of which bears the name “Albert Jahnke”, which just so happens to be my grandfather’s name. I had no idea I had skrinks in my family tree.

The Baron ends up finding a use for Emil after all when Müller blows a hole through the wall that’s too small for any of the skrinks to fit through. Emil squeezes into the vault and passes as much cash as possible back to the thieves. But the Baron had always planned on double-crossing Grundeis. As soon as he and Müller get to safety, he rigs a dynamite charge to trap Grundeis and Emil underground.

While Gustav tries to rescue Emil, the rest of the detectives stay on the Baron and Müller’s trail. As they try to escape on foot, the detectives spread a rumor that they’re carrying a bagful of money and stopping every few blocks to give it away. Before long, every kid in the neighborhood is hot on their heels looking for a handout. The police arrive, the skrinks are carted off to jail and everyone agrees to never use the term “skrink” again.

Emil And The Detectives certainly has a lot of potential. The idea of a bunch of kids forming a private detective club is pretty irresistible. Erich Kästner’s book went on to inspire everything from The Famous Five to Encyclopedia Brown to the late Richard Donner’s movie The Goonies. But part of the trouble is not a whole lot actually happens in this movie. Especially in the first half, there’s way too much sitting around and waiting. Staking out hotel lobbies may be a realistic part of detective work but it isn’t much fun to watch. Things pick up considerably when Emil gets captured and Tewksbury instills those scenes with a sense of real danger. But it all happens too late to save the picture.

The other problem is the kids themselves. They’re pretty interchangeable and don’t have the most dynamic personalities in the world. Apart from the Professor (Brian Richardson), who likes to show off his ten-dollar vocabulary, and the twins (Ron and Rick Johnson), who are twins, I couldn’t tell you much about these kids. Say what you will about The Goonies but those kids had very distinct, colorful personalities. The detectives just seem like average, ordinary kids.

Walt may have agreed with that assessment because almost none of the young actors ever appeared in another movie, much less another Disney project. The two exceptions were Emil and Gustav. Bryan Russell had already been in one Disney movie, an uncredited appearance in Babes In Toyland. He’ll be back in this column but he’d also go on to appear in a couple of productions for Walt Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color, including Kilroy, a comedy about an ex-Marine who has a big effect on his best friend’s hometown.  

Roger Mobley will also return to this column but he had an even bigger impact on TV. In 1965, Walt gave him the title role in The Adventures Of Gallegher. As an ambitious copyboy determined to make a name for himself as a reporter at the turn of the century, Mobley snooped his way through four series of Gallegher over the next three years. Walt seemed to be grooming Mobley for bigger things. His name was one of four jotted down (along with another actor we’ll be seeing soon enough, Kurt Russell) on Walt’s cryptic last memo before his death in 1966. But Mobley’s acting career was interrupted in 1968 when he was drafted into the Army. After a tour of duty with the 46th Special Forces Company (Airborne) in Vietnam, Mobley never quite picked up the threads of his former career. We’ll see him again but it appears that he was quite content to leave acting behind.

We won’t be seeing any of the adult actors again, which is a bit surprising. Walter Slezak is certainly the best known of the three. He’d been in the industry since the silent days and had become a reliable character actor in movies like Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat. He’s a lot of fun as the pretentious Baron, hauling an ornate table setting, caviar and fine wine down into an underground tunnel. He’d have made a fine addition to the Disney roster of cosmopolitan villains.

Heinz Schubert and Peter Ehrlich were both German actors who never made much of a dent outside their home country but were particularly prolific on German television. They both acquit themselves well here. Schubert especially has an amusing physicality that draws you to him whenever he’s on screen. He has dialogue but the way he moves is reminiscent of silent film comedians. Maybe if the movie had been a bigger hit, Schubert would have had more opportunity to break through in America.

As it happened, Emil And The Detectives wasn’t a hit. It was positioned as the studio’s big Christmas release for 1964. And to be fair, Disney’s previous film, Mary Poppins, was continuing to cast a very long shadow. Any movie would have struggled to live up to the expectations set by that juggernaut. Despite some favorable reviews, Emil And The Detectives pulled in less than $2 million at the box office. By 1966, Walt had relegated it to TV status.

One other thing I should add about Emil And The Detectives. Despite its relative obscurity, Disney has elected to include it on Disney+. However, that version opens with a disclaimer stating the film has been edited for content. I can find no information about what exactly that edited content might be. There’s nothing that stands out as an obvious trim. Maybe the original version was a bit more violent? I really don’t know, so if anyone can shed some light on this mystery, I’d love to hear it.

VERDICT: It isn’t the skrinkiest movie you’ll ever see but anything this inconsequential has to be considered a Disney Minus.  

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Almost Angels

Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Almost Angels

As I’ve mentioned before, this column exists to take a look at every theatrical feature film released by Disney in chronological order. The list I’m working from comes from the official D23 website, so I’m not the one making the rules here (well, of course I am but you get the idea). For the most part, the distinctions between a theatrical film and a TV or direct-to-video release are pretty cut and dried. But as we move into the 1960s, those lines get a little blurry. (They’ll get even blurrier when we hit the modern, streaming era.)

Walt had always kept the production values on his television productions extremely high. Episodes of Davy Crockett and Zorro could be stitched together as feature films and they’d look every bit as good as anything else in theatres. As the Disneyland/Walt Disney Presents/Walt Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color productions grew more ambitious, an overseas theatrical run was rolled in as part of the release strategy. Some of these movies, like Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow (a.k.a. The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh), were pretty terrific.

At first, second and third glance, Almost Angels seems like it ought to be one of those TV productions that fall outside of this column’s jurisdiction. It’s a film about the Vienna Boys’ Choir shot entirely on location in Austria. Eurocentric subject matter and locations were always a plus for overseas markets. The director and several cast members had already been involved in TV productions that went theatrical abroad. And even though the film is beautifully shot, its brief running time and focus on character dynamics make it feel right at home on the small screen.

But believe it or not, Almost Angels was released theatrically in the United States, albeit in a somewhat limited fashion. The film came out September 26, 1962, on the bottom-end of a double feature alongside a re-release of Lady And The Tramp. I’m not sure what accounts for this unusual release. This wasn’t the first (or last) time they’d bundle movies together like this. But usually, either both films would be a re-release or the co-feature was more of an extended short subject. Was this a TV project that got bumped up? Or was it a feature that Walt didn’t think could succeed on its own merits?

Theatrical re-release poster featuring Lady And The Tramp and Almost Angels

If it was the latter, Walt needn’t have worried. Almost Angels is no classic but it’s actually pretty darn good. Young Vincent Winter stars as Toni Fiala, a boy who longs to join the legendary choir. His father (Fritz Eckhardt) is a blue-collar railroad worker who wants his son to learn a trade. But his piano-playing mother (Bruni Löbel) believes in Toni’s talent and arranges an audition. When Toni wins one of the coveted spots, Papa reluctantly agrees to let him go under the condition that he keeps his grades up.

Once at the school, choir director Max Heller (Peter Weck) asks his star pupil, Peter (Sean Scully), to take Toni under his wing. Toni idolizes Peter but Peter, jealous of potentially losing his spot as top boy, makes life difficult for him. When Toni is given Peter’s usual solo during a performance at a children’s hospital, Peter locks him in a closet so he misses his cue. But the indomitable Toni escapes through a window, shimmying along the side of the building to make an even more dramatic entrance.

Eventually Peter and Toni become friends. Toni struggles with arithmetic and his grades begin to slip. But after he hears his son perform, Papa has a change of heart, even defending his son’s poor academic performance to the school director (Hans Holt). All systems are go for the choir’s next big international tour when disaster strikes for Peter. His voice begins to change at the worst possible moment.

Toni quickly puts together a scheme that he hopes will allow his despondent friend to come along on the tour. He arranges for another boy to sing Peter’s part from the wings while Peter lip-syncs on stage. Heller and the rest of the audience are suspicious of the half-baked performance from the start. Their suspicions are confirmed when Peter, thoroughly embarrassed, runs from the stage in tears.

Fortunately, Heller is sympathetic to Peter’s dilemma. Peter has also displayed an aptitude for composing and conducting, so Heller proposes bringing the boy along as assistant conductor. The board of directors think this is a swell idea. The movie concludes with Peter triumphantly conducting the Vienna Boys’ Choir as Toni takes the spotlight with a solo.

Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go. If you don’t enjoy listening to boys’ choirs, you’re not going to have a good time with Almost Angels. There are a lot of extended musical sequences in the film. The music, almost entirely German and Austrian pieces by such masters as Johann Strauss II and Schubert, is uniformly lovely if that kind of thing is your jam. But if it isn’t, you may end up watching this on fast forward.

Director Steve Previn and screenwriter Vernon Harris (later an Oscar nominee for the screenplay to Oliver!) base their film on an original story by Robert A. Stemmle, a prolific German screenwriter and director. Neither Stemmle nor Harris had any further association with Disney, so I’m not entirely sure how they became involved. As is the case with so many minor Disney live-action productions, the specific origins of the project remain elusive.

But Previn, who was also born in Germany (and was the brother of musician André Previn), directed a couple of other TV productions that were released theatrically overseas. Part one of the first, Escapade In Florence, aired in the US on September 30, just days after Almost Angels was released. Escapade In Florence starred Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk as students studying abroad who stumble onto an art forgery scam.

Previn’s third and final Disney project was more explicitly tied to Almost Angels. The Waltz King was a full-on Johann Strauss biopic, with Kerwin Mathews as the young composer and Brian Aherne as the father who casts a long shadow. Both Escapade In Florence and The Waltz King were well-received, so I’m at a loss to explain why neither of them received a domestic theatrical release but Almost Angels did.

It’s easy to imagine Walt assigning Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran to star in Almost Angels. It’s also easy to imagine what a bad idea that would have been. Both Sean Scully and Vincent Winter are ideally cast, bringing a natural, easy-going rapport to the screen. Winter had won a juvenile Academy Award for his film debut in The Little Kidnappers back in 1953. He made his Disney debut in a small role in Greyfriars Bobby and would next appear on TV in The Horse Without A Head (which would, of course, be released in overseas cinemas). He’ll be back in this column before too long.

Sean Scully was the real find of the movie, believably conveying teen angst, jealousy and loyalty without ever once becoming overbearing or unlikable. All of Scully’s Disney work falls into that gray area between TV and film. He’d played the title roles in an adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince And The Pauper and would go on to appear in The Scarecrow Of Romney Marsh. He’s still acting, primarily on television back in his native Australia. But it’s a shame Disney didn’t use him more extensively.

The adult cast members were Austrian and German actors with limited appearances in American films. Peter Weck certainly seems like he should have become a bigger star. As the sympathetic choir director, Weck develops a warm bond with the boys, casting a wry look at their pranks and mischief-making but never sacrificing his demand for excellence. His only other American film credit came in 1963 with a supporting role in Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal (opposite Moon Pilot star Tom Tryon). Weck is a handsome, charming actor, so I’ve got to assume that it was his own choice not to pursue Hollywood stardom.

Almost Angels is definitely an obscure movie. It’s available on DVD only as a Disney Movie Club Exclusive and has never been released on Blu-ray. But it’s available to stream on Disney Plus, so the studio holds it in higher regard than some other curios like Toby Tyler or Bon Voyage! Maybe it’s just the fact that Almost Angels is completely inoffensive and doesn’t require a disclaimer to justify its inclusion. Regardless of their rationale, it’s a decent little movie that deserves to be remembered.

VERDICT: Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome kicking in after suffering through so many Disney Minuses in a row, but I’m calling this a Disney Plus.

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