THE GNONE-MOBILE

title: THE GNOME-MOBILE

year: 1968

cast: Walter Brennan

rating: *

I've been on a Disney kick lately, watching (or rather, re-watching) all those live-action gems I grew up being amazed by. Within ten minutes of this vapid doozy about a bunch of "little people" in the forest being threatened by a big bad environmental corporation, when the three leads all broke into song... my addiction went belly-up. To quote John Cleese's character in SILVERADO: "Today my jurisdiction ends here".

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ODDBALL

title: UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ODDBALL

year: 1979

cast: Dennis Dugan

rating: **

At one time Dennis Dugan annoyed me but after "The Howling" I began to appreciate him. He's not too bad here (as a cross between Don Knotts and Dean Jones) playing duo roles: a scientist and a robot-astronaut clone of himself. Both go up in a rocket (the scientist accidently) and land in King Arthur's court where our wimpy hero battles Sir Mordred (Jim Dale, a Disney staple) and woos a beautiful farm girl while teaching King Arthur and Merlin about the history of America. What begins as a semi-intriguing sci-fi comedy gets weighed down by the setting of the book, Mark Twains "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", wherein the adaptation value of a modern man in Arthurian England being mistaken for a wizard, the best aspect of the novel, is all but lost within silly swordplay and meandering, unfunny hijinks. Overall this is a Disney dud.

RETURN FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN

year: 1978

cast: Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann, Bette Davis

rating: ***1/2

The original, ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, centered too much on Eddie Albert, his RV, and the villain and not enough of the kids. I realize the kids were the stars but it didn't seem as much their movie as this sequel in which the alien brother and sister take a visit to L.A. and things go wrong really quick. The boy is kidnapped and brainwashed by evil Christopher Lee, his henchman Anthony James, and Lee's seemingly-bad counterpart Bette Davis (who turns good later on). The girl escapes and joins a gang of ten year old street urchins and they plan to rescue the brother. Good versus evil is a lot funner this time around since there are more kids involved. I also enjoyed the climax pitting brother and sister against each other. Chalk this up as another example where the sequel trumps the original. At least for me.

THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE

title: THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE

year: 1978

cast: Ken Berry

rating: ***

Domestic cats seem like they're from outer space to begin with; with their haughty mannerisms alone they're merely looking down on we mortal humans. So having a cat be from a more intellegent highly developed planet isn't much of a stretch. The tabby cat hero in this averagely entertaining live-action seventies Disney film merely has to act like a cat, and with the aid of a collar full of lights that glow when it's allowing humans to fly or horses to win races, it's totally believeable that this creature is better than us. For the most part the cat, Jake (voiced by Ronnie Schell), is better than the film itself, which isn't too bad but kind of meanders along at times; the first half set-up as the cat adapts to Earth, helps his friends bet horses and win a pool match against mobsters fares better than the last part outwitting government agents. Ken Berry does a decent job replacing the usual Disney staple Dean Jones (Berry is to Jones what Buddy Ebson is to Eddie Albert). It's interesting seeing both M*A*S*H colonels McClean Stevenson and Harry Morgan in a film together. And Jake's spaceship, which looks like the head of an space alien grasshopper, is kinda cool lookin'... at least from the outside.