Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Never A Dull Moment

Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Never A Dull Moment

The Dick Van Dyke Show aired its final episode on June 1, 1966, just about one month before Van Dyke’s second Disney movie, Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., hit theatres. Since then, Van Dyke had made two more movies at other studios: Divorce American Style, which had done OK and earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, and Fitzwilly, which had not. Considering that both of Van Dyke’s Disney movies had been hits, despite the vast disparity in the quality of the two films, it’s little wonder that he decided to return to the studio one more time for Never A Dull Moment.

Never A Dull Moment was produced by Ron Miller, the former football player who was married to Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney. Since going to work for his father-in-law, Miller had specialized in broad comedies like the Merlin Jones pictures. He’d worked with Dick Van Dyke on Lt. Robin Crusoe. There’s not a lot of behind-the-scenes information about this movie out there (shocking, I know) so I’m not entirely sure where the idea to make this film came from. But my assumption is that Miller found the original novel and felt it would make a good vehicle for Dick Van Dyke.

About that novel…it was published in 1967 as an Inner Sanctum Mystery called A Thrill A Minute With Jack Albany by John Godey. Godey, the pen name of Morton Freedgood, wrote a number of crime novels including The Three Worlds Of Johnny Handsome (later filmed by Walter Hill) and The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, the basis for the classic 1974 thriller starring Walter Matthau. So I’m assuming (doing a lot of that this week) that Godey’s novel is a bit more adult-oriented than the movie.

A.J. Carothers wrote the screenplay, his last work for Disney after such films as The Happiest Millionaire and Emil And The Detectives. Carothers went on to create the TV show Nanny And The Professor. He also wrote quite a few made-for-TV movies and the feature films Hero At Large and The Secret Of My Success. Carothers seems to have retired after that last film and he passed away in 2007 at the age of 75.

As with Lt. Robin Crusoe, Van Dyke appears to have used some of his clout to bring aboard a director he was familiar with but new to Disney. Jerry Paris had been Van Dyke’s costar on The Dick Van Dyke Show, appearing as the Petries’ neighbor, Jerry Helper. He started directing the show in 1963, winning an Emmy in the process. He eventually phased acting out to focus entirely on directing. Never A Dull Moment would be his only Disney gig. He continued to direct a lot of TV, including the majority of Happy Days episodes, and the occasional feature like Police Academy 2 and 3. Like Carothers, he also made a lot of made-for-TV movies including one of my favorites, the cult classic Evil Roy Slade.

Theatrical release poster for Never A Dull Moment

At first glance, Never A Dull Moment looks promising. Van Dyke is well cast as Jack Albany, an egotistical C-list actor still waiting for his big break. He’s the kind of actor who quotes reviews of his triumphant performance in Twelfth Night whenever he gets the chance. After appearing as a gangster on a TV show, Jack heads home, still in costume. But when he suspects he’s being followed, he ducks into a warehouse and runs into a low-level mob flunky named Florian (Tony Bill, who would win an Oscar a few years later for co-producing The Sting). Florian has been sent to collect a hired killer named Ace Williams and naturally assumes that Jack is Ace. Jack tries to explain the misunderstanding but once he realizes that Florian will kill him if he isn’t Ace, he decides to play along.

Florian brings Jack/Ace to the country house of powerful gangster Leo Joseph Smooth (Edward G. Robinson in one of his last gangster roles). Smooth may be a high-ranking mafioso but he’s neither famous nor infamous. In an attempt to secure his place in history, he’s planned an art heist. His crew will steal the 40-foot-long painting “Field of Sunflowers” after a museum benefit. He then intends to give the masterpiece back to the museum in his will, along with a sizable donation if they agree to name the museum after him.

To pull the job, Smooth has assembled a crack team of professional criminals, including communications expert Bobby Macoon (Richard Bakalyan, who had an uncredited appearance as an umpire in Follow Me, Boys! and is about to become a very familiar face in this column), Cowboy Schaeffer (Slim Pickens, making his first Disney appearance since Savage Sam), and stone-faced killer Frank Boley (the awesome Henry Silva who unfortunately did not become a Disney regular). Frank’s the only one who doesn’t believe Jack is the real Ace Williams, which automatically makes him the sharpest tool in a dull shed.

To make sure nothing goes wrong, Smooth informs everyone that they’ll all be staying at the house until it’s time for the benefit the next day. This ends up including Smooth’s art instructor, a civilian named Sally Inwood (Dorothy Provine, returning to the Disney fold for the first time since That Darn Cat!). Jack thinks he and Sally might be able to help each other out of this mess but has a hard time getting alone with her. Part of the problem is Jack is continually waylaid by Smooth’s wife, Melanie (Joanna Moore, last seen in Son Of Flubber), a lonely ex-burlesque dancer eager to share memories of the stage with Jack.

Eventually, the real Ace Williams (played by the wonderful Jack Elam and he’ll be back in this column, too) turns up at the house. Turns out that Ace was mugged on his way to the meet-up, so he doesn’t have anything to prove he’s the real McCoy. Neither does Jack, so the crew decides that the only way to find the real Ace Williams is to lock them both in a room and have it out. Two men enter, one man leaves and that man must be the real killer. Fortunately for Jack, Sally just happens to be hiding out in the room chosen for the fight. She knocks Ace unconscious and agrees to work with Jack to figure a way out of this mess. Ace is locked in the basement and Jack has no choice but to go along with the heist.

The next day, Jack heads out with the crew to infiltrate the museum disguised as caterers. Meanwhile, Sally is left alone with Ace in the basement and Joe Smooth’s tough-guy valet, Francis (Mickey Shaughnessy), guarding her. As Sally tries to outwit the bad guys, Jack is forced to go into action and play his part. He tries explaining to the guard what’s going on in a whisper but, for reasons that are literally never explained, the guard suddenly collapses in a heap, dead as a doornail.

The rest of the crew is very impressed by this but Jack suddenly decides he’s had enough. He refuses to steal the painting and leads the crew on a chase through the museum. Along the way, Jack finds the second guard, who ALSO dies the second Jack touches him. The chase doesn’t climax so much as peter out when the police suddenly turn up. Seems that Sally was able to escape and call the cops after all. They all go round up Smooth at the rendezvous point and Jack and Sally, who think they’ve fallen in love for some reason, live happily ever after.

Theatrical re-release poster for Never A Dull Moment

So, there are a whole lot of problems with Never A Dull Moment but my biggest question when I was finished with all this was, “How did the author of The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three come up with such a boring heist?” It turns out he didn’t. In the book, the bad guys are planning to kidnap the mayor of New York City. That certainly sounds a whole lot more interesting than stealing one painting from a museum, no matter how oversized the canvas.

The title Never A Dull Moment is clearly a suggestion, not a guarantee. The movie is often shockingly, staggeringly dull. Over half of the movie takes place in that house. While we’re there, Dick Van Dyke spends a lot of time pretending to be drunk (which is one of those gags that’s funny the first time but gets old quick), Edward G. Robinson goes on and on about art and legacy and overexplains the logistics of this very basic heist, Dorothy Provine behaves as though this threat against her life is a mid-level inconvenience, and Slim Pickens mangles the pronunciation of “horse doovers”.

Things don’t improve much at the museum. The climactic chase goes through various wings of the museum, which seems ripe for comedy. But for the most part, those opportunities are squandered. Even potentially dated and problematic humor is largely absent. I was ready to cringe when they entered the “Primitive Art” wing but, apart from referring to it as “primitive”, the sequence mostly avoids outdated stereotypes.

The “Pop Art” wing primarily just goes for the low-hanging fruit of “isn’t modern art weird?” At one point, the chase passes an oversized Roy Lichtenstein-like mural that was actually done by longtime Mickey Mouse cartoonist Floyd Gottfredson. You don’t get to see much of it in the movie but I thought it was cool. However, I don’t want you to have to sit through this whole movie just to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Gottfredson piece, so here it is:

Floyd Gottfredson's Astro Pooch comic strip as seen in Never A Dull Moment

Whatever else you might say about Never A Dull Moment, the cast really isn’t to blame. Dick Van Dyke has a plum role here, it just needed to be drastically rewritten. He does the best he can with what he’s got to work with. The same goes for Robinson, Provine, Moore and that murderers’ row of killer character actors. But you can’t make something from nothing and Never A Dull Moment surrounds its cast with a whole lot of nothing.

The movie was released on June 26, 1968. Reviews were middling to negative and it ended up earning considerably less money than Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. Dick Van Dyke’s next feature would be more successful. Released in December of 1968, it was a family-fantasy-musical set in England, not unlike Mary Poppins, that reunited him with the Sherman Brothers. But Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was not a Disney movie, although trailers sure tried to make it look like one. Within a few years, Dick Van Dyke would decide he was through with movies for awhile and return to television for most of the 1970s and 80s. It’ll be quite some time before he returns to this column.

Even though Never A Dull Moment wasn’t a home run by any definition, it still served its purpose. It helped establish the heist comedy as another go-to genre for Disney. The studio played on the fringes of this sandbox in earlier films like That Darn Cat! and Emil And The Detectives. But this time, there were no kids, no animals and no gimmicks. Just a relatively straight-forward case of mistaken identity and some crooks doing a job. It wouldn’t be long before Disney found its way back to this well.

VERDICT: Disney Minus

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Savage Sam

Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Savage Sam

For years, Walt Disney had been an outspoken opponent to the very idea of sequels. But apparently pulling the trigger on Son Of Flubber, the follow-up to The Absent-Minded Professor, convinced Walt that sequels weren’t such a bad idea after all. Within six months of Flubber’s release, Walt had another sequel in theaters. Perversely, he decided to make a sequel to the one movie that seemed uniquely resistant to continuation.

From a dollars-and-cents perspective, a sequel to Old Yeller makes perfect sense. Fred Gipson’s novel was an award-winning modern classic. Walt’s movie adaptation had been even bigger, an indelible cinematic experience that marked a generation. So when Gipson published his sequel, Savage Sam, Walt understandably snatched up the movie rights immediately.

But narratively, you really have to question the need to continue this story. Setting aside the fact that the title character is shot dead by the end of the picture, Old Yeller is fundamentally a coming-of-age story about young Travis Coates (played in both films by Tommy Kirk). By the movie’s end, Travis does in fact appear to have come of age. His character arc has reached its natural conclusion. How many more dogs does this kid have to shoot before he can be considered a man?

Dorothy McGuire and Fess Parker couldn’t be persuaded to return to their roles as Katie and Jim Coates. In Parker’s case, I’d wager that Walt didn’t even bother to try. The two men hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms when Parker left the studio. McGuire, on the other hand, had recently starred in Swiss Family Robinson and will soon be back in this column. Without Parker, they probably just figured it made more sense to eliminate both parents altogether.

Jim and Katie are in San Francisco, tending to a sick grandmother, leaving the boys at home to tend to the Coates homestead. Travis is in charge and it’s going about as well as you’d expect, since younger brother Arliss (Kevin Corcoran, of course) is still an obnoxious little hellion. If anything, he’s even worse now, pouting and whining and throwing rocks at his brother whenever things don’t go his way. The boys have a new dog, Sam, the son of Old Yeller although he doesn’t look anything like the puppy we were introduced to at the end of the first film. Sam is almost as uncontrollable as Arliss but at least he’s got a more pleasant personality.

The boys haven’t been left completely on their own. Their previously unmentioned Uncle Beck (Brian Keith, making his fourth appearance in this column) stops by now and again to look in on them. And their neighbor, professional mooch Bud Searcy (Jeff York, his sixth) is on hand to help himself to a plate of beans. Meanwhile, Bud’s tagalong daughter, Lisbeth, still seems to be nursing a mostly unrequited crush on Travis.

Marta Kristen steps into the role of Lisbeth, replacing Beverly Washburn. Kristen was just starting out in the business. A few years after Savage Sam, she’d be cast as Judy Robinson in Lost In Space, starring Disney’s former Zorro, Guy Williams, as her father. Beverly Washburn would also become a cult star with roles on the original Star Trek and in the unhinged drive-in classic Spider Baby. Apparently the role of Lisbeth Searcy is a young actress’ ticket to cult stardom.

The story doesn’t really kick in until Sam and Arliss chase after a pesky bobcat that’s been sneaking around the homestead. Travis and Lisbeth go looking for them, finding them still harassing the now cornered and harmless cat. Travis tries dragging Arliss away and while they’re squabbling, a riding party of Apache horse thieves happens by. They capture the kids and knock Sam unconscious, leaving him for dead.

The Apache admire Arliss’ spirit and decide to make him one of their own. Lisbeth is presumably meant to be turned into an “Indian squaw”. As for Travis…well, he’s kind of useless, so when he falls off a horse, the Indians don’t bother going back to pick him up. Fortunately, Uncle Beck and Bud have rounded up a posse (including Dewey Martin, who had starred in Disney’s Daniel Boone TV show, Slim Pickens and Royal Dano, his granite face sculpted into a permanent scowl) to rescue the kids. Sam has also recovered, so the posse follow his lead as he tracks Arliss’ scent across country.

You can probably see where all this is headed. The posse stays on the trail, despite some hardships and bickering. Dano’s character is presented as the most virulent Indian hater of the group. And while Keith patiently explains that he’s got a good reason to hate (Indians slaughtered his entire family), he’s also quick to cut him off after they rescue the kids and Dano’s still out for blood. So you see, not everybody is down to start indiscriminately murdering every Indian they meet. Just those who have a really, really good excuse.

Look, there are obviously many stories of Native Americans capturing white women and kids and either raping and killing them or raising them on their own. Those tales form the basis of one of the best Westerns of all time, John Ford’s The Searchers. Walt himself already explored the subject with more nuance and sensitivity five years earlier with The Light In The Forest. The thing is, The Light In The Forest is not a particularly nuanced or sensitive film. But compared to Savage Sam, it’s downright enlightened.

Savage Sam simply takes a handful of characters the audience is theoretically fond of and plunks them down into a standard issue Cowboys & Injuns picture. And I say “Injuns” because these are not Indigenous Peoples or Native Americans or even “Indians”. These are cartoon characters, presented with zero subtlety or respect, and played primarily by actors without a drop of Native ancestry. One notable exception was Pat Hogan, a member of the Oneida Nation who had previously appeared in Davy Crockett and Ten Who Dared.

The only halfway sympathetic Indian is a peace-loving Comanche who rides along with the Apache played by Dean Fredericks. Fredericks had the sort of ambiguously ethnic look that led to him playing a wide range of inappropriate roles. His most famous part came when he dyed his hair blond to play the title role in the TV adaptation of Milt Caniff’s Steve Canyon. The Comanche helps the kids out a little bit, even if that usually just means he’s not actively participating in their abuse. He certainly doesn’t factor into their rescue all that much.

Theatrical release poster for Savage Sam

It’s no secret that I am not a fan of Old Yeller. But I can appreciate what others see in it, even if I don’t personally enjoy it. The same can’t be said for Savage Sam. This is a coarse, ugly movie that has virtually nothing in common with its predecessor. Director Robert Stevenson had at least been able to instill Old Yeller with some charm and pathos. Norman Tokar, who had previously demonstrated his ability to work with dogs and kids in Big Red, focuses instead on rote action sequences. He isn’t able to give Sam the same winning personality as Yeller. If there’s any kind of silver lining to it at all, at least Sam’s still alive at the end of the picture.

Sadly, the same can’t be said of the real-life inspiration for Sam and maybe some of the film’s unpleasantness can be explained by the events surrounding its creation. Walt hired author Fred Gipson to write the screenplay for Savage Sam in collaboration with William Tunberg, just as he’d done with Old Yeller. But Gipson was fighting a losing battle against alcoholism by this time. One weekend while working on Savage Sam, Gipson’s son, Mike, came home from college. He found their dog, who Sam was based on, chained up in the backyard and beaten to death. Mike went back to school and committed suicide. Not long after that, Gipson’s wife filed for divorce.

Savage Sam would be the last book Fred Gipson published in his lifetime, although he continued writing up to his death in 1973. A third Coates family adventure, Little Arliss, was published posthumously in 1978 and was turned into a 1984 TV special, although not by Disney.

Critics and audiences agreed that Savage Sam was one of Disney’s weaker efforts when it premiered in June 1963. It earned less than half of Old Yeller’s box office take. Compared to Son Of Flubber, which made nearly as much as The Absent-Minded Professor, it had to be considered a major disappointment. The fallout obviously hit Fred Gipson hardest but the movie’s failure also had repercussions for Tommy Kirk. This would be his last dramatic role at Disney. We’ll see him in this column again but when he returns, it’ll be back to comedies. And for Tommy Kirk, it’ll also be the beginning of the end.  

VERDICT: Disney Minus  

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Tonka

Original theatrical release poster for Walt Disney's Tonka

By the end of 1958, Disney’s live-action division was stuck in a bit of a rut. They’d enjoyed some huge hits like Treasure Island, Davy Crockett and 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. But those were exceptions, not rules. They were known more for historical adventure pictures mixing fictional characters with real-life events. From UK productions like The Sword And The Rose to the Revolutionary War exploits of Johnny Tremain to the Civil War adventure The Great Locomotive Chase, the studio had applied the same basic formula no matter what the historical setting. That didn’t quite come to an end with Tonka, the 1958 western directed by Lewis R. Foster, but it became a much less frequent occurrence.

Academy Award nominee and noted non-Native American actor Sal Mineo stars as White Bull, a headstrong Sioux brave. After spotting a spirited colt running with a band of wild horses, White Bull “borrows” a coveted rope from his cousin, Yellow Bull (equally non-Native H.M. Wynant). White Bull loses both the rope and his bow and arrows in his attempt to capture the horse, leading Chief Sitting Bull (actual Sioux John War Eagle) to forbid him from participating in future hunts.

White Bull goes out to find his lost bow and finds the horse, who he’s already named Tonka Wakan (the Great One), completely tangled up in his cousin’s rope. He constructs a makeshift enclosure, frees the horse and slowly and patiently begins training Tonka. After some time, he triumphantly returns to his tribe with Tonka. But Yellow Bull isn’t satisfied with just getting his rope back. He pulls rank and claims Tonka for his own.

The horse refuses to cooperate, responding only to White Bull’s more gentle hand. Knowing he can’t reclaim the horse from his older cousin but unable to bear watching him suffer, White Bull does the only thing he can: he sets the horse free.

Tonka rejoins his band but his freedom is short-lived as they’re caught in a round-up (led by Slim Pickens, making his second Disney appearance). The cowboys sell the horses to a cavalry outfit where Tonka catches the eye of Captain Myles Keogh (Philip Carey). Keogh sees that Tonka has been well-trained and responds to gentle, patient instruction. Renaming the horse Comanche, Keogh claims him for his own and grows to love him almost as much as White Bull.

With reports of Sioux converging on the area, Keogh reports to General Alfred Terry (Sydney Smith) and General George Armstrong Custer (Britt Lomond). While the cavalry troops formulate a plan of attack, White Bull volunteers for a reconnaissance mission. He sneaks into the fort and while reuniting with Tonka is caught by Keogh. The two enemies bond over their shared horse. Keogh turns White Bull in for questioning but promises he won’t allow anyone to hurt him. The next morning, Keogh lets White Bull go, hoping they’ll never meet on the battlefield.

The cavalry forces split up with strict orders not to attack until they’re together again. But Custer, who is depicted as nothing short of genocidal when it comes to the Indians, hears a report of an isolated group in the valley of Little Bighorn. Custer decides they’d be stupid not to attack and we all know how that turned out.

Miraculously, both White Bull and Tonka survive the battle. Tonka/Comanche becomes an honored war hero, the only survivor of the attack on the cavalry side. He’s retired from active military service and White Bull is made his official caretaker, the only one allowed to ride Tonka from now on. In the wonderful world of Disney, even Custer’s Last Stand somehow has a happy ending.

Now you might be thinking that Walt Disney is an odd choice to make a movie based on one of the bloodiest skirmishes in the annals of the American West. You would be correct. It’s based on the novel Comanche by David Appel. Comanche was a real horse who did survive the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Like Black Beauty, Appel’s book is told from the horse’s point-of-view. The movie can’t quite replicate that narrative trick, opting instead to tell the story primarily from White Bull’s perspective.

The title change from Comanche to Tonka is indicative of the film’s new focus but the actual reasoning behind it is more mundane. Another unrelated western called Comanche had just been released a couple years earlier, so screenwriters Lewis R. Foster and Lillie Hayward changed their title to avoid confusion.

The idea of telling the story of Little Bighorn from the Sioux’s point of view is a good one, as would be demonstrated years later in the novel and film Little Big Man. In some ways, Tonka is a bit ahead of its time, especially in its depiction of Custer as the villain. Custer was frequently seen as a tragic hero in those days. That was the image presented by Errol Flynn in the wildly inaccurate biopic They Died With Their Boots On. Lomond plays him as a vain, half-crazed racist. Carey is frequently seen casting some skeptical side-eye at his fellow officer.

None of this lands with much force, partly because Britt Lomond is sort of bland in what should be a role that lends itself to showboating. Lomond had already appeared as a Disney villain on TV, playing the ruthless Captain Monasterio on Zorro (Zorro will eventually appear in this column). Television seemed to be his natural element as he never did quite break into film as an actor. Eventually he started working behind the camera as a production manager and assistant director on such features as Somewhere In Time and Purple Rain.

It would be one thing if Lomond’s uninspired performance was an isolated misstep in casting. Unfortunately, it’s fairly typical of the film in general. Philip Carey brings something of a Troy McClure vibe to the role of Captain Keogh. This was presumably the role Fess Parker refused to play and it’s easy to see how his laid-back, sympathetic nature would have lent itself to the part. But it also would have been one more ever-so-slight variation on his Davy Crockett persona, so it’s hardly surprising Parker walked away from it. Carey is more broad-shouldered and square-jawed but you never feel like he believes in what he’s doing the way Parker did. Fess Parker may have been somewhat limited as an actor but at least he oozed sincerity. Carey is just another handsome actor playing dress-up.

Carey never made another Disney movie but he went on to an eclectic career in film and television. He went back to Little Bighorn, this time as Custer, in the 1965 western The Great Sioux Massacre. In a classic episode of All In The Family, he appeared as Archie Bunker’s ex-football player buddy who shocks Archie by revealing that he’s gay. And in 1980, he joined the cast of the long-running soap opera One Life To Live, a role he’d continue to play for nearly 30 years.

Jerome Courtland played Keogh’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Henry Nowlan. Courtland has already appeared in this column, although I didn’t realize it at the time. He sang the title song for Old Yeller. On TV, Courtland played the title role in The Saga Of Andy Burnett, another of Walt’s Davy Crockett wannabes. By the end of the 1960s, Courtland had moved behind the camera. He’ll be back in this column as a producer and director.

Sal Mineo was already a major star when he made Tonka and it’s a little hard to imagine what brought him to the Disney lot. Walt wasn’t a fan of working with established movie stars, preferring to cultivate his own talent. And it isn’t as though he didn’t already have plenty of young men in that age range under contract, especially if casting an actual Native American actor wasn’t a priority.

Mineo had been nominated for an Oscar for his work in Rebel Without A Cause and reteamed with James Dean in his final film, Giant. So Sal Mineo was very much wrapped up in the Dean Mythos that began to appear immediately after his death. In the years since, he had cornered the troubled teen market in movies like The Young Don’t Cry. For Mineo, Tonka was a chance to break out of that box and show audiences he could do more than just brood.

To some extent, he’s successful in his attempt. He smiles a lot more in Tonka than in any other film I’ve seen him in. It’s a very physical role and he seems confident and comfortable with his equine costar. He’s not equally at home with all the action. His handling of a bow and arrow is particularly awkward. And in 1958, even the most sensitive portrayals of Native Americans lapsed into the cartoonish and stiff broken English of Tonto.

Tonka represents some baby steps in the right direction toward more positive depictions of Native Americans on screen. But it still relies on slathering up primarily white actors with bronzer, sticking black wigs and feathers on their heads and calling it good. Foster may have had good intentions but he lacks authenticity. Without authenticity, it’s easy to doubt his sincerity.

Ultimately it’s a lack of clear focus that sinks Tonka. Is it an inspiring story about a young man and his horse? Or is it a violent western retelling a dark chapter in American history? Foster isn’t really equipped to turn in more than a fun adventure story but the Battle of the Little Bighorn could hardly be described as “fun”. In the end, Tonka doesn’t seem to know what it’s trying to accomplish beyond showcasing all these magnificent horses.

Tonka was released on Christmas Day 1958. It was no blockbuster but it did a respectable amount of business. But Walt’s next live-action feature would be a blockbuster and its success meant that he’d be spending a lot less time and money on historical adventures. They wouldn’t disappear entirely but after Tonka, they would no longer be the studio’s primary live-action focus.

VERDICT: Disney Minus.

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Disney Plus-Or-Minus: The Great Locomotive Chase

Original theatrical poster art for Walt Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase

Walt Disney LOVED trains. Model trains, full-size trains, animated trains, historic trains, experimental trains, you name it. If it ran on a rail, he was all over it. So it was perhaps inevitable that he would eventually make a film based on one of the most famous railroad-related incidents of the Civil War, it not all time. The Great Locomotive Chase, based on the 1862 theft of a Confederate train by Union spies, briefly reignited Walt’s interest in filmmaking. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite the thrilling passion project it should have been.

Lawrence Edward Watkin, the screenwriter responsible for Disney’s British films from Treasure Island to Rob Roy, The Highland Rogue, had very much remained a part of the studio since the UK division folded. Watkin not only wrote the screenplay for The Great Locomotive Chase, he also served as producer for the first and only time in his career. Producing might not have been his forte but he continued to write for Disney for many years.

Watkin’s 1942 novel Marty Markham had provided the basis for the wildly popular Spin And Marty segments on The Mickey Mouse Club. One of the primary directors on that show was a former editor named Francis D. Lyon. Lyon had won an Oscar as one of the editors on the classic boxing film noir Body And Soul. His first two films as director, Crazylegs and The Bob Mathias Story, had both been sports biopics that starred their subjects as themselves. Having cornered the market on that very specific subgenre, Lyon signed on to The Adventures Of Spin And Marty.

Comic book adaptation of Walt Disney's Spin & Marty

Spin And Marty became an out-of-nowhere phenomenon, almost rivalling Davy Crockett. Considering the success Disney had repackaging other TV productions for theatrical exhibition, I’m a little surprised that Spin And Marty won’t be appearing in this column (although its stars, Tim Considine, David Stollery and second season addition Annette Funicello, certainly will). Regardless, teaming up the director and the original creator of Spin And Marty on a project must have been a no-brainer.

The choice of who to star in the film was even more obvious. Davy Crockett had turned Fess Parker into an international star. Naturally, Disney had placed Parker under contract and now had to generate projects for him to appear in. The role of James J. Andrews, the civilian Union spy from Kentucky who led the mission, was squarely within Parker’s wheelhouse. Andrews may have had a nicer wardrobe but he was still very much a Crockett type.

Jeffrey Hunter was cast opposite Parker as the persistent train conductor William Fuller. Today, Hunter is probably best remembered among geeks of a certain age as Captain Pike in the original pilot for Star Trek. Back then, Hunter had been kicking around Hollywood for a few years. He had appeared in movies like Red Skies Of Montana and Belles On Their Toes but efforts to turn him into a major star hadn’t really clicked. That started to change after John Ford cast him opposite John Wayne in The Searchers, which was released just a few weeks before The Great Locomotive Chase.

Ironically, Ford’s first choice for the part had been none other than Fess Parker. Parker wanted the role badly but Disney refused to let him out of his contract. Hunter later said he didn’t know anything about all that until years after the fact, while Parker said losing the part was one of the biggest disappointments of his career. This would end up being one of several incidents that ended up creating a rift between Fess Parker and Walt Disney.

The rest of the cast was filled out with character actors who would go on to have long associations with the studio. Jeff York, Kenneth Tobey and Don Megowan had all appeared alongside Parker on Davy Crockett. Harry Carey Jr. starred as Triple R Ranch counselor Bill Burnett on Spin And Marty. John Lupton, who narrates the film as Union soldier and chronicler William Pittenger, would later appear in several Disney film and TV productions of the ‘70s. Even the great Slim Pickens pops up briefly as the engineer of the train Fuller commandeers. All of these actors will appear in this column again.

This would be Disney’s first time bringing American history to the big screen (Davy Crockett, of course, having been originally made for television) and Walt was prepared to spare no expense. Peter Ellenshaw again painted meticulous mattes that brought the past to life. Walt himself made sure to guarantee the historical accuracy of the locomotives, working personally with the B&O Railroad Museum to secure period-appropriate trains. Watkin based his screenplay primarily on the account written by Pittenger himself. Artist and historian Wilbur Kurtz was brought on board as a technical advisor, a job he’d previously performed on both Gone With The Wind and Song Of The South. The location chosen was along the disused Tallulah Falls Railway in north Georgia, not too far from where the actual event took place.

All of this research may have resulted in a reasonably accurate portrayal of the events, although Watkin’s script absolutely takes some liberties. But it doesn’t necessarily translate into a particularly exciting movie. Trains are wonderful, beautiful pieces of machinery. I’m a huge fan of them myself. But they aren’t very fast. Back then, they topped out around 20 miles per hour. Andrews’ train wasn’t going nearly that fast because they kept stopping to cut telegraph wires, tear up rails and perform other acts of sabotage. When Fuller first takes off in pursuit of the train on foot, it seems at first as though the movie’s entire chase might be a foot race.

The movie seems to be told in increments of 10-15 miles. Andrews’ train gets a little ahead, then stops. Fuller catches up a little bit, deals with whatever shenanigans Andrews has prepared for him, then inches forward again. Every so often, one of Andrews’ more aggressive men will spoil for a fight, only to have Andrews talk him off the ledge. For an ostensible action movie, it’s all very leisurely.

Finally, Fuller succeeds in catching up to his stolen train and Andrews agrees that it’s time to make their stand and fight. But no sooner has he made this declaration than the Cavalry rides in, hoopin’ and hollarin’! Hopelessly outnumbered, Andrews and his men head for the hills, abandoning the train and their mission. The big fight is over before it’s even underway and the whole mission has been for nothing. If you’ve ever been uncertain about what the term “anticlimactic” means, watch this movie. All will be made clear.

Andrews and his men are eventually captured and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Pittenger comes up with a daring escape plan. The plan works but Andrews sacrifices himself, allowing himself to be recaptured so the rest can get away. In the end, only about half the men make it back to safety, where they become the first recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The problem here is that the story is being presented as one of great heroics and honor, when it’s really one of defeat and failure. It’s an interesting story but the movie isn’t equipped to frame it in a way that makes sense. Half our heroes are executed and their plan fails but somehow that’s still a triumphant ending? The only winner here is Fuller. He, at least, gets to shake hands with his nemesis in the end and assure him that he was a worthy and honorable opponent. The movie really should have been about him.

Original theatrical poster for Buster Keaton's The General, inspired by the real-life Great Locomotive Chase

Of course, that movie had already been made thirty years earlier. Buster Keaton’s silent classic The General was inspired by the exact same incident. Only in this version, Keaton plays the Fuller character (here named Johnnie Gray), the tireless, persistent Southern engineer who pursues his stolen locomotive regardless of whatever obstacle is thrown at him. In terms of historical accuracy, it has relatively little to do with the actual event. But as a movie, it’s a whole lot more fun to watch.

As a comedy, The General is able to make the Union spies the bad guys without anyone raising an eyebrow. The Great Locomotive Chase might be on the right side of history but it’s telling a story where the good guys lose. And yes, this is a very homogenized look at the Civil War that reduces the players to Good Guys and Bad Guys. Don’t look for any larger explorations of the issues surrounding the war here.

On the plus side, that also makes the film relatively inoffensive. African-American characters are mostly absent. Sure, you could choose to be offended by the fact that they somehow made a movie that takes place in Georgia during the Civil War with only three, mostly non-speaking Black characters. But considering Hollywood’s track record with situations like this, silence is probably golden.

The Great Locomotive Chase only did so-so business when it was released in the summer of 1956. But it ended up playing a small role in another landmark event in Walt’s life. Walt’s adopted hometown of Marceline, Missouri, contacted him that year. The city was preparing to open a new municipal swimming pool and wanted to dedicate it to Marceline’s favorite son. Walt and his brother, Roy, agreed to return to their childhood home for a homecoming visit that summer. One of the planned events would be the Midwest premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase.

Walt and Roy Disney attend the Marceline premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase

If you’ve seen footage or photos of Walt and Roy strolling around Marceline while reminiscing, it most likely came from this trip. This visit became a key part of the myth-making around Walt Disney’s boyhood. The idealized nostalgia of Disneyland’s Main Street USA and films like So Dear To My Heart and Lady And The Tramp now had a basis in reality. Walt would continue to put Marceline up on a pedestal for the rest of his days. It came to represent everything that was good and pure and true about America.

Also on this visit, Walt began making inquiries into buying the old farm where he and his family had lived. He was envisioning another theme park, one that would transport visitors back to a quieter, more idyllic time. Dubbed The Marceline Project for security reasons (Walt knew that property values would skyrocket the second people discovered Disney was coming to town), it was meant to be an actual working farm with living history exhibits and attractions designed by the Disney Imagineers.

Walt’s death in 1966 brought an end to The Marceline Project. Walt had hoped Roy would bring the new park to fruition but by this time, he was completely absorbed in the construction of Walt Disney World, the Disneyland companion park in Florida.

Still, the Disney connection has provided a big boost to the Marceline Chamber of Commerce. At the premiere of The Great Locomotive Chase, Walt told the audience of children, “You are lucky to live in Marceline. My best memories are the years I spent here.” Any town would be thrilled to ride the coattails of a quote like that for generations and Marceline has certainly done just that. In 2001, the town opened the Walt Disney Hometown Museum to celebrate Walt’s centennial year.

As for the movie itself, nobody really talks much about The Great Locomotive Chase anymore. It isn’t available on Disney+ and has not yet been released on Blu-ray. The city of Adairsville, Georgia, holds an annual Great Locomotive Chase Festival the first weekend in October (unfortunately cancelled this year, due to COVID) to commemorate the actual event. I’ve never been but I’m guessing that if any movies are included in their festivities, it’s Buster Keaton’s The General and not this one.

VERDICT: Disney Minus

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