Back in 2008, I watched several Disney movies directed by Norman Tokar, and while I loved The Apple Dumpling Gang, my response to the others was a bit more tepid. I didn’t set the bar too high, then, when I queued up No Deposit No Return,
one of the last movies Tokar directed. I’d never heard of it before,
but the cast – Darren McGavin, David Niven and especially Don Knotts –
seemed promising, so I was happy to see it arrive even though I wasn’t
sure whether it would be a hit or miss.
No Deposit No Return, like Mary Poppins,
is the story of two upper-class children who have grown frightfully
mischievous after years of neglect. Their father is out of the picture,
and their mother is a magazine editor who delegates the job of raising
them to maids and boarding school staff. Now it’s Easter break, and all
Tracy (Kim Richards) and Jay (Brad Savage) want is to spend the week
with their mother. To their dismay, they learn that she’ll be in Hong
Kong all week, while the housekeeper who normally looks after them while
they’re at home is headed to Bermuda. They’re being shipped off to Los
Angeles to stay with their grumpy grandfather, multi-millionaire J. W.
Osborne (Niven), a prospect none of the three relishes.
Tracy
begins to formulate a plan for connecting with their overbooked mother,
and when she and Jay find themselves sharing a taxi with Duke (McGavin)
and Bert (Knotts), a petty safe-cracker and his driver, a light bulb
goes off. After manipulating the men into letting her and Jay spend the
night in their hideout, she writes a letter to her grandpa to announce
that she has been kidnapped and tells Duke and Bert of her plan,
explaining that all she wants is enough money for two plane tickets to
Hong Kong. If they will only play along, they could be very rich men –
and they are desperately in need of a windfall, since nefarious loan
shark Big Joe (Vic Tayback) is on their tails. After all, how hard could
it be to keep an eye on a couple of kids for a few hours?
Right from the credits, this movie is enormously entertaining. The stylized animation is reminiscent of a Pink Panther
opening and bears little literal resemblance to the movie, though some
of the kids’ adventures are hinted at in their animated exploits. Jay’s
pet skunk Duster has pride of place in this sequence, and a shark,
perhaps representative of Big Joe, surfaces to stir things up. I was
smiling when the animation ended, so it boded well for the rest of the
movie, and happily the live action lived up to the engaging cartoon
credits.
Richards and Savage were both Disney veterans when they
filmed this movie, and they seem right at home in this zany family
comedy. I was especially impressed with Richards, who makes Tracy
simultaneously sweet and devious. She is arguably the cleverest
character in the movie, though her elaborate schemes don’t always have
the desired result. There’s something hypnotically adorable about this
plucky youngster. Savage is fun to watch as well, though Jay is such a
walking disaster that I couldn’t help cringing a bit as I contemplated
what sort of massive mess he was going to make next. Duster often steals
the show; all he has to do is turn up someplace unexpected to raise a
panic, and it’s quite comical to see so many people lose all composure
at the mere sight of this docile creature rendered offensive by the
noxious odor he could release.
Given Knotts’ comedic genius, I
am always disappointed when comedies fail to take advantage of his full
skill set. Happily, this one does, from his aw-shucks dialogue to his
bug-eyed responses and his spectacular pratfalls. One sequence in
particular that leads him on a wild skunk chase through a dangerous
series of high-rise obstacles allows him to show just how hilarious he
can be. McGavin makes a good foil for him, a steady, more serious type
who’s got a better head on his shoulders but still is pretty hapless in
most situations.
Niven’s dry British wit is the highlight of any
scene involving Mr. Osborne, who, having tailed Tracy and Jay to Duke
and Bert’s headquarters, knows where they are and rather hopes they will
stay there. His lack of concern for his grandchildren is mildly
appalling, yet his calm contemplation of how long this charade might
continue is quietly riotous, especially as we come to appreciate just
what a handful these two can really be. We mostly see him conferring
with his faithful butler Jameson (John Williams), but he also comes into
occasional contact with the duo of incompetent detectives trying to
catch both the kidnappers and the safe-cracker. Thick-mustached Sergeant
Turner (Herschel Bernardi) is the more experienced cop, and the
breathless enthusiasm of his glasses-wearing, textbook-spouting partner
Longnecker (Charles Martin Smith) wearies him. These two are almost as
funny as Duke and Bert.
The movie, written by Arthur Alsberg and
Don Nelson and based on a story by Joe McEveety, is nearly two hours
long, and it’s packed with action, often of the humorously disastrous
variety. A little of that can go a long way, but I didn’t mind it here,
especially since the chaos is rarely widespread. It also never becomes
crude, which isn’t surprising for a 1970s Disney film but is refreshing
nonetheless. What’s more, along with all the goofy comedy, the story has
real heart. I wonder if the season two Pushing Daisies episode Window Dressed to Kill
took any inspiration from this; in both, a lonely, smarter-than-average
girl convinces a pair of bungling burglars to kidnap her and a deep
emotional attachment forms. It’s not hard to see the basic trajectory
that the story will take, but a few twists and turns took me pleasantly
by surprise. I do love a good redemption story, even when the baddies
really aren’t all that bad to begin with.
I’ve got a few more
Tokar movies lined up to watch soon, and now I am looking forward to
them more than I was initially. While exemplifying his tendency toward
excessive runtimes, No Deposit No Return never feels overlong and aptly demonstrates how well Tokar could fare with the right material.
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