The Apple Dumpling Gang

source: The Apple Dumpling Gang

Could've/should've been funnier, but 'The Apple Dumpling Gang' is still an entertaining enough 100 minutes. I had a solidly good time with it, it never drags and has a few decent characters and a watchable plot to follow along. As noted, I think they were going for something way more amusing, especially with Theodore (Don Knotts) and Amos (Tim Conway) - who I liked watching, but they aren't overly funny. Bill Bixby (Donovan) and Susan Clark (Dusty) team up to strong effect, while Harry Morgan probably gives the best performance as McCoy. The villains are largely forgettable, though Slim Pickens is OK as Stillwell. Not much more to add in truth, except for acknowledging the nice set design. All in all, the film isn't anything incredible but I'd still very much recommend it.

Don Knotts and Tim Conway, two very big stars in their own right, teamed to do some very successful films mostly for the Disney Studio. Their comedy style was a lot like Laurel and Hardy, but in terms of individual stars teaming and being successful at both, the only comparison there is Crosby and Hope. The Apple Dumpling Gang follows the misadventures of these two lunkheads as they try their hand at the outlaw trade. They accidentally shot a really fierce outlaw in Slim Pickens and left him crippled in one leg and he's out for their hides. Paralleling that plot is that of gambler Bill Bixby who wins what he thinks is a consignment of freight in a poker game, but what he really gets is the delivery of three children. Being a roving bachelor Bixby naturally thinks the kids will cramp his style and they do for awhile. Willing to help is Calamity Jane like character Susan Clark who drives for the freight line that her father David Wayne owns. One thing I do so like about Disney films is the use of familiar Hollywood faces who were having trouble getting work. For example the brassy Iris Adrian, a little older and heftier, but still full of sass. But the film really belongs to Conway and Knotts. Conway is the Laurel like figure in the partnership, dumb and he knows it. But he has for a partner Knotts who like Oliver Hardy is full of grand schemes who when they blow up in his face will always blame is hapless partner. But in point of fact Knotts is just a bad planner. The Apple Dumpling Gang spawned a sequel in The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again where Knotts and Conway have even more hysterical misadventures. This one however and its successor are some of the best films Disney Studios made in the Seventies.

The Don Knotts/Tim Conway teamup makes this movie one of the all-time greats. How can anyone not laugh at this duo? They are fall-on-the-floor hysterical. The scene with the ladder is nothing short of brilliant! Once again, we have an example of a 1970s movie that features actual slapstick comedy instead of vulgarity or crudeness. Once again, viewers tend to forget the great character actors and their contributions that make this movie, if not great, at least above-average during the 1970s. I agree there are some horrible movies in the 1970s, but this probably is not one of the worst. Who can resist Harry Morgan's commanding voice? Or the actor (now long dead) who played the bank president? I feel that without these Walt Disney "fluff" movies, as a film buff, the whole 1970s decade would have been a dry desert. The reason is, what other movie studio could round up all the great actors of the period, put them together in a comedy, and make it work? Had these actors not been in these movies, we would not have seen them AT ALL! The children were irresistible, as well as the actors I have just mentioned. This anti-1970s-Disney attitude of viewers mystifies me. This particular movie was a lot better than some of Disney's other disasters, namely the sequel to this. Other Disney disasters: The Shaggy D.A. and Meteor.

For some reason I don't have a lot to say about this film other then the fact that I liked it. That is a very boring and uninteresting review. But because my goal is to actually write reviews of movies that I see and not just become a bland passive movie watcher, I summit this review for others to look upon. Don Knots and Tim Conway are a perfect comedy due. Their both nerds in this film but Don Knots is the chief nerd in charge. They provide many wacky and comical moments to the film. But it really isn't a wacky slapstick film. It is a family comedy with a serious storyline. It is filled with touching and tender moments and has the classic storyline of a harden man who doesn't like kids and thinks only of himself only to have his heart turn gooey to the kids he's inherited by the end of the film. If that insight spoils the film for you, you haven't seen that many Disney films. If you want a fun time in the old west with touching comedic moments, that try the 'The Apple Dumpling Gang'

TITLE: THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG was release in movie theaters in the United States on July 1 1975 and it took 100 minutes to watch this movie. The Apple Dumpling Gang is a 1975 Disney film about slick gambler Russell Donavan (played by Bill Bixby) who is duped into taking care of a group of orphan children who eventually strike gold during the California Gold Rush. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Jack Bickham. The eponymous gang is named after the American dessert, the apple dumpling. Buddy Baker composed the music for it and its 1979 sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. The song "The Apple Dumpling Gang", as heard in the opening and closing credits, was composed by Shane Tatum and was sung by Randy Sparks and The Back Porch Majority. SUMMARY: The movie stars Tim Conway and Don Knotts as a team of bumbling gangsters who try to steal the gold, but later are offered the gold by the children. Conway and Knotts play the leads in the sequel (The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again), in which Bixby and the rest of the original cast - with the exception of Harry Morgan as the sheriff in the first one - does not appear. The Apple Dumpling Gang also features Susan Clark as the stagecoach driver who is persuaded to marry the gambler in an attempt for both of them to keep custody of the children. Harry Morgan plays the role of the sheriff who doubles as the barber and Justice of the Peace; and Slim Pickens as Knotts' and Conway's former boss who tries to kidnap the children and steal the gold.

I mean, it isn't the best cinematic experience out there, but so what? I probably had not seen this in twenty years and had only vague memories of Don Knotts 'hanging' around the bank with Tim Conway. This movie is really sweet and cute and fun to watch. You can see the way Disney used to make movies for children...the sets, the costumes, the character actors, the dialogue...even the music are all kid-friendly. There aren't that many modern movies from Disney that I would let children see, but I can almost always trust the ones made before 1984 (basically a legal decision happened in that year that allowed corporate infiltration into the creative process...1984 is pretty much the year that the USA started to really go downhill as far as business ethics in the movie industry as well as other big corporations targeting children as cash cows). Apple Dumpling Gang wasn't meant to be a huge blockbuster success with corporate sponsorship and marketing agendas, it is a film made by a company who knew and loved kids and made movies to entertain them and their parents at the same time. It is full of nostalgia. I highly recommend it for everyone!!! Oh, and Don Knotts, Tim Conway, and Bill Bixby are comic geniuses!!! It's definitely worth a rental to check it out for yourself, it sure couldn't hurt and you may be very pleasantly surprised. :)

I noticed that several reviews for "The Apple Dumpling Gang" said it's a good family film. Well, I don't exactly agree. While kids will likely enjoy it, parents will likely struggle because the humor is designed to appeal only to kids. A few examples are the annoying orphans...one whose 'funny' routine is that she needs to pee all the time and the other is a kid who loves kicking people in the shins. Uggh...unfunny and annoying. Not much better are the shennanigans of Tim Conway and Don Knotts...comic relief whose comedy is pretty limp but, again, will likely appeal to kids. My advice is for adults to just turn the film viewing experience as a drinking game and take a shot every time the little girl says she needs to use the bathroom....you'll soon be too loaded to care about the film. Bill Bixby plays a professional gambler in the old west. Soon after the story begins, he's given custody of three orphans...and he has no interest in being a daddy. He tries repeatedly to give them away but without success. Later, the brats find a huge gold nugget in their dead father's mine...and suddenly townsfolks are willing to take the kids. Fortunately, the gambler isn't willing to dump the kids on these greedy folks but sets his eyes on leaving them with a tom-boy like lady (Susan Clark). But what about the local idiots who want to steal the nugget (Conway and Knotts)? In many ways, this movie plays like two different movies combined....with the gambler and the kids being one story and the two idiot crooks being a separate story that occasionally intersects. My feeling is that for kids, I'd give this one a 7. They'll enjoy it but won't love it. For adults adn teens, I'd give this one a 3, as it's often painful viewing. Painful and unfunny. Overall, I'd give this one a 4...and it helps illustrate the sorts of dreck Disney was releasing through the 1970s.

So why no awards? Why a 5.8 here at the Internet Movie Database????? Oh well. Anyways, Disney's 1975 live action classic "The Apple Dumpling Gang" is one of the many western films that Disney has released in the latter part of the "Vault Disney" period as well as the middle of, as I call it, "The Golden Age of Disney" (1920s-early 2002). This, of course, is a fun and funny family western; everything from start to finish is wonderful, exciting, and genius. I've heard about this movie being shown on the classic Disney Channel sometime in '97 or '98, and on the Hallmark Channel way later. However, I've only seen this once on an old VHS in fall 2001, and my family liked it! The ending's cute, too; I will leave it hush-hush so you can figure it out!!!!! "The Apple Dumpling Gang," despite it's mediocrity, is still a wonderful Disney film. 10 stars

What is going on in this town that people keep carrying giant mirrors through the middle of the street?! This is a complete throwaway comedy-western, whose mildly humorous individual parts don't add up to much more than a cheap distraction for bored little kids.