Comedy

How to Frame a Figg

by user
June 14, 2016March 25, 2024

How to Frame a Figg, starring Don Knotts

How to Frame a Figg is a long-time favorite Don Knotts movie. Don stars as Hollis Figg, one of the bookkeepers for the small, but corrupt, town of Dalton. In an attempt to frame someone else for their own shenanigans, the town leaders purchase a second-hand mainframe computer and fire everyone except Figg, who becomes responsible for running the computer, as well as becoming the fall guy for the town’s financial corruption —hence, the title. As you can likely guess, Don Knotts fights back in his own jittery way, eventually winning the day and the girl.

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

by user
June 14, 2016February 13, 2022

Walt Disney’s Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977)

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo has three major plots running through it. First is Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) attempting to resuscitate his racing career. With the help of his mechanic Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts) at a race in Europe. Hence the ‘Monte Carlo’ of the title. In addition, a pair of thieves (played by Bernard Fox and Roy Kinnear) have stolen a large diamond from a museum, and hide the stolen jewel in Herbie’s gas tank to escape detection …

And providing motivation for them and police inspectors to chase Herbie on the prolonged race route. Complicating these two is Herbie himself falling in love with another car, a Lancia. It (she?) is owned by a beautiful female race driver (Julie Sommars), whom Jim Douglas begins falling in love with. Is it the highlight of 20th-century cinema? No. Is it an enjoyable family film? Absolutely! The race scenes are fun, as are the interactions between the cast members, with Don Knotts playing his nervous everyman character to the hilt, Dean Jones is as enjoyable as ever, and Herbie actually shows off his personality. It’s an enjoyable movie, and I hope that you and your family enjoy it. I rate it 3 clowns out of 5.

Don Knotts Reluctant Hero Pack

by user
June 13, 2016January 19, 2022

Review of Don Knotts Reluctant Hero Pack (The Ghost And Mr. Chicken / The Reluctant Astronaut / The Shakiest Gun In The West / The Love God?) (1969)

A collection of four of Don Knotts movies from the 1960’s—the best known is The Ghost and Mr. Chicken but all four provide solid laughs. The most unusual is The Love God? – a satire on American culture’s preoccupation with sex, the so-called sexual revolution, and American society.

Our Hospitality

by user
June 13, 2016April 8, 2021

Product Description of Our Hospitality, courtesy of Amazon.com

Our Hospitality – Like his 1926 film The General, this elaborate historical comedy broadened the boundaries of slapstick and proved that Buster Keaton was not just a comedian, he was an artist. Keaton stars as youthful dreamer Willie McKay, who travels westward on a rickety locomotive to claim his birthright, only to find that his inheritance is a shack. And he learns that the object of his affection (Keaton s real-life wife, Natalie Talmadge) is the daughter of a man with whom his family has been engaged in a long, violent feud. McKay s personal struggles are punctuated by brilliant slapstick set pieces that involve an exploding dam, raging waterfalls, and a primitive steam engine. Keaton supervised the design and construction of the train, which he revived two years later for the short The Iron Mule (in which he appears without credit as an Native American chief).

This definitive edition of OUR HOSPITALITY features an exquisite orchestral score by Carl Davis, performed by the Thames Silents Orchestra; a documentary on the making of the film; and a rare alternate cut entitled Hospitality . SPECIAL FEATURES: Music composed and conducted by Carl Davis, performed by The Thames Silents Orchestra (in 5.1 Surround or 2.0 Stereo), Musical score compiled by Donald Hunsberger (2.0 Stereo), The Iron Mule (1925, 19 Min.), with music by Ben ModeL, Original documentary on the making of the film, written by film historian Patricia Eliot Tobias with David B. Pearson, Hospitality, a 49-minute alternate cut of the film, with an explanatory introduction, and an organ score by Lee Erwin, 2 Galleries: Photos & Snapshots

The Apple Dumpling Gang

by user
June 12, 2016February 13, 2022

Walt Disney’s The Apple Dumpling Gang, starring Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Bill Bixby, Susan Clark – DVD review

Many people who were children during 1975 will remember Walt Disney’s The Apple Dumpling Gang with fondness. The basic plot involves three orphans, who become the responsibility of Russell Donovan (played by Bill Bixby), a bachelor and small-time con artist who wants nothing more than to be free of them. After spending time trying to foist the children upon someone else, it’s found out that they own the deed to a gold mine, formerly thought to be worthless, but that produced a sizable nugget of gold after an earthquake.

Dear God

by user
June 12, 2016July 12, 2023

Dear God — starring Greg Kinnear, Tim Conway, Laurie Metcalf, Hector Elizondo

I have to admit being pleasantly surprised by Dear God. Originally I was only going to review it for completeness’ sake, as part of the Tim Conway reviews. I picked it up at my local Wal-Mart for only $4.00. I figured that even a little bit of Tim Conway was worth $4.00. Even if the rest of the movie was a waste. It wasn’t, for several reasons.

The Saphead

by user
June 12, 2016April 5, 2024

Editorial review of The Saphead (1920) starring Buster Keaton, courtesy of Amazon.com

In his first starring role (and the film that launched his career), Buster Keaton stars in The Saphead as Bertie Van Alstyne, the spoiled son of a powerful Wall Street financier. Unable to escape the wealth and comfort that are foisted upon him, he pursues individuality in a series of comic misadventures in the speakeasies of New York, at the altar of matrimony, and even on the floor of the American stock exchange. The Saphead was instrumental in establishing Keaton as a bona fide star and greatly influenced his formulation of the Buster persona: a lonely, stone-faced soul thwarted by circumstance yet undauntedly resourceful and indefatigable in his struggle for love and survival within a chaotic world.

Steamboat Bill Jr.

by user
June 11, 2016July 2, 2024

Product Description of Steamboat Bill Jr. courtesy of Amazon.com

The last of the independent features made in the prime of Buster Keaton‘s career, Steamboat Bill Jr. is a large-scale follow-up to The General, substituting a Mississippi paddle wheel for the locomotive, and replacing the spectacle of the Civil War with a catastrophic hurricane. Keaton stars as William Canfield, Jr., a Boston collegian who returns to his deep-southern roots to reunite with his father, a crusty riverboat captain(Ernest Torrence) who is engaged in a bitter rivalry with a riverboat king coincidentally, the father of Willie s sweetheart (Marion Byron). Keaton s athleticism and gift for inventive visual humor are in top form, and the cyclone that devastates a town (and sends houses literally crashing down around him) is perhaps the most ambitious, awe-inspiring and hilarious slapstick sequence ever created.

Pajama Party

by user
June 11, 2016February 7, 2023

Pajama Party (1964) starring Annette Funicello, Don Rickles, Buster Keaton

In short, Pajama Party is an Annette Funicello beach party movie. But in addition to the gyrating young girls in bikinis,Pajama Party adds large amounts of clown-level zaniness as well. The basic story has 3 intertwining plots – a Martian invasion (led by a clean cut, inept Martian teenager and managed by Don Rickles), a beach party complete with teenage angst, and some inept crooks (including Buster Keaton as an American Indian, still wearing his traditional pork pie hat — with a feather in it). There’s a lot of humor in the movie, with slapstick that borders on the Looney Tunes. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it and hope you do as well.

The Shakiest Gun in the West

by user
June 6, 2016May 11, 2022

The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) starring Don Knotts, Barbara Rhoades

In short, The Shakiest Gun in the West is a very funny Don Knotts movie. Set in the American Old West, Don plays the part of Jesse W. Haywood, a recent graduate from Dentistry school. He is going out west to make his fortune. His final exam in dentistry school is funny, as is his boarding the train out West. Along the way, his stagecoach is held up by two robbers (his reaction being very funny in itself). And one of the two robbers is a lovely woman, “Bad Penny” Cushing (Barbara Rhoades). But, she is soon arrested, and given an opportunity for a pardon in exchange for infiltrating a wagon train heading out west …. And to break up a ring of gun smugglers.