Herbie Rides Again (1974)

Could a familiar face be the thing I need to get me out of this rut? Disney sequels aren’t usually very good but it’ll be hard to be worse than that last movie.

Disclaimer: This blog is purely recreational and not for profit. Any material, including images and/or video footage, are property of their respective companies, unless stated otherwise. The authors’ claim no ownership of this material. The opinions expressed therein reflect those of the authors and are not to be viewed as factual documentation. All photos are capped from my copy of the movie with InstantShot! unless otherwise specified.

Sorry this review got delayed, guys! I needed a mental health break after Superdad. And also I was distracted playing Pokémon: Legends Arceus. Great game, but let’s get back to it!

Thus far, Robert Stevenson’s direction has been the studio’s lucky charm. Even the most banal premise turns to gold in his hands, including his previous work on the original Love Bug. Bill Walsh is an equally skilled writer, and I think it’ll be a treat just to see them work together as a reminder of what competent filmmaking looks like. And the original movie was so successful they could afford a more in-depth marketing campaign too! Though Volkswagen didn’t allow its logo to be seen in The Love Bug, they got heavily involved in promoting Herbie Rides again. Each show room had a pearl white Bug painted like Herbie on its show room floor, and sold special graphic kits in case prospective buyers wanted to create their own.

So did it work? Well…. not really. It made $31 million at the box office, compared to The Love Bug’s $50 million, and received mixed to negative reviews. The best audiences could say was that it was tolerable and there was nothing particularly offensive, but there was nothing amazing about it either. It was just a sequel. A plain old, run-of-the-mill sequel that tried and failed to capture the magic of the original. Good to know Disney took that lesson to heart, right?

STORY

You would think a Herbie movie would begin with Herbie driving around being lovable to his delightfully perky leitmotif. You would be wrong. Instead, it opens on our villain, Alonzo Hawk, gleefully blowing crap up. He even fantasizes about demolishing the Roman Coliseum to build a shopping center! But his magnum opus will be Hawk Plaza, the world’s tallest office building that bears more than a slight resemblance to the World Trade Center so that’s awkward. His employee Barnsdorf, can’t wait to break ground, but there’s one little problem. One little firehouse remains in tact on the land, because its owner refuses to sell to a bunch of shady lawyer types.

If Hawk’s going to convince the little old lady who own the place to get out of his way, he’ll need someone innocent, obedient, and monumentally stupid to do the job. Luckily for him, the perfect man shows up in his office at just the right time. Hawk’s nephew Willoughby Whitfield, fresh out of law school, needs a good case to break into the field. As if to prove his point, he wastes no time in presenting Hawk with the Humanitarian of the Year award. He was the entire award committee, and rather than so much as reading anything about the man, he decided no one deserved it as much as his uncle, just because his mom always hero-worshipped him. Like, he didn’t even meet the man. From there, all Hawk has to do is spin a few tales about how important it is to get the old lady off that land before she starts her own crime ring and Willoughby is on his merry way.

The amazing firehouse from the first movie stands alone among a pile of rubble. Willoughby admires a “coming soon” ad for Hawk Plaza, but his cab driver is less impressed. He shrugs it off and saunters past the old lady’s pearl white Volkswagen Beetle to knock on her door. Mrs. Steinmetz greets him with a warm smile and invites him in for tea, but he can’t join her because her car rolled onto his foot. She scolds the car for being rude to their guest and continues to explain that Herbie’s still mad his old owner abandoned him to race foreign cars. Way to undo all that character development, Jim.

And Herbie’s not Mrs. Steinmetz’s only mechanical friend! She also has an orchestrion that plays music relevant to whatever’s going on and Old Number 22, a retired street car. Now thoroughly worried about the old lady’s mental health even though he saw Herbie drive on and off his foot, Willoughby mentions Hawk sent him. She’s horrified, because he’s much too nice to be involved with the man trying to demolish the house where she married her firefighter husband. She explains that her nephew Tennessee Steinmetz (who’s in Tibet and not appearing in this film) taught her objects like the house and her car have souls and feelings, which I guess explains how Herbie came alive? I think it makes Herbie feel less special but that’s just me.

An airport shuttle rolls up and drops a pretty flight attendant named Nicole Harris at the door. The second she hears Willoughby works for Mr. Hawk, she slugs him across the face. I’ll go over this later in Characters, though longtime readers probably know that the idea of violence against men as an indicator of a strong woman is icky on a lot of levels. But the movie plays her knocking him out cold with one punch as funny so here we are. Sigh. To her credit, Nicole isn’t about to allow any of Hawk’s goons to harass Mrs. Steinmetz, so she sends the old lady up to her nap so she can kick him out. By any means necessary.

Desperate to make his first assignment a success, Willoughby begs her to reconsider. He can’t in good conscience leave an old lady alone in that house, especially when her mind is starting to go and she thinks her car is alive. For some reason that never really gets explained, Nicole knows Herbie is alive, so she invites the interloper to go for a little ride. Willoughby happily accepts, thinking he’s in the clear, and at first Herbie drives like a perfectly normal car. He’s so confident that Nicole is just feeding an old woman’s dementia that he starts ranting about how there’s nothing special about Herbie. And he makes the mistake of calling him ugly. Twice. The oversensitive little car freaks out and careens through the streets of San Francisco while the helpless humans inside scream and the special effects guys do what special effects guys do in this series.

Herbie pulls up to what looks like a Renaissance Fair, except the main event is cars playing chicken. The clear favorite of this bizarre joust is the Red Knight, who utterly demolishes his first opponent and thoroughly freaks Willoughby out. So of course, Herbie pulls up and volunteers as the next challenger. Nicole beats a hasty retreat but Herbie locks Willoughby inside, forcing him into the game of chicken. He wins, of course, and the reaction of the girl acting as the “princess” has to be seen to be believed. She goes from totally uninterested to overacting like hell in her enthusiasm to kiss the “champion”. It’s amazing. The random New York gangster who shows up to give Willoughby the three dollar prize out of nowhere is wild, too. It’s so weird you can’t help but laugh, and it’s not even the strangest scene in the movie. But we’ll get there. Oh, we’ll get there.

Willoughby is completely shell-shocked by the experience, but it did get him to believe Herbie is alive much faster than Jim Douglas did. I guess I’m glad they didn’t just rehash the same plot . When Nicole slides back into the car, he tries to apologize, but she can’t stand men who apologize which… what? God this relationship is going to have soooo many issues later. Well, Willoughby is still a decent dude so he offers to take her to lunch at the same Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant from the last movie. And I don’t want to think about the last movie. Now that she’s calmed down, Nicole can explain that Hawk demolished her home, leaving her with no place to live until Mrs. Steinmetz opened her home, and that’s why she goes feral at the mention of his name. So like, I get it but also the girl’s got some unresolved issues. Willoughby tries to defend the Hawk he knows, but he makes the mistake of revealing that he’s his uncle. Nicole freaks out again and whacks him with a lobster so hard he goes flying into the bay.

Apparently somewhere between becoming roommates and now Nicole became a caretaker for the old woman and started calling her Grandma. I guess it’s good to have a close relationship to the people you live with but it just feels inconsistent with what we were shown earlier. Nicole tucks Mrs. Steinmetz into bed with a glass of warm milk and sighs that she wishes she could stop beating up attractive men. And you can tell this was made at a Different Time because Mrs. Steinmetz’s reply is that she hits him because she likes him and they’d make a great couple. Yikes. Nicole insists on being allowed to win Willoughby her way, which is probably going to end with a huge hospital bill. With a kiss on her apparent surrogate grandma’s forehead, she slides down a fire pole out of the room which is admittedly kind of awesome, and wishes Herbie sweet dreams. So, Herbie dreams of the only real racing in this entire movie, which is entirely cut together from B Roll from The Love Bug. It’s meant to show how sad Herbie is at being abandoned and retired, but it mostly comes off as filler.

I didn’t write down how but somehow being walloped with a lobster convinced Willoughby that his uncle is no good. Okay, it was probably Nicole’s sob story, but still. He rehearses the speech he’s going to give to put Hawk in his place while preparing to leave San Francisco forever. It all sounds great alone in his hotel room, so he saunters over to the firehouse to say his goodbyes, filled with newfound confidence. He even gives Herbie a little pat on the hood, which makes Mrs. Steinmetz happy. Her smile drops when he announces he’s leaving, and without even facing Nicole again. She’s much scarier than his uncle. He just bids Mrs. Steinmetz and Herbie goodbye and strides off to Hawk’s office.

Unfortunately for Willoughby, Hawk is already in a towering rage. Barnsdorf called just to remind him that he’s paying them $80,000 a day to sit on their laurels waiting for the project to start, and his perfect scapegoat has gone missing. Willoughby enters the office just in time to hear his uncle howling about how useless and spineless he is. Instantly, he loses his nerve and flees to the safety of a phone booth, where he can tell his uncle exactly what he thinks of him without the risk of being stabbed with a letter opener. Except when he hears his uncle’s voice, he can’t. He can, however, lie, make a bunch of weird boat noises, and pretend he’s leaving the country so he doesn’t have to swindle a nice old lady. Hawk gets so angry he can’t even form words, just babbles angry gibberish until it reaches fever pitch and smashes the phone booth to pieces. Keenan Wynn’s delivery is magical.

That tantrum wears Hawk out so much that he ends up on a fainting couch with his long-suffering secretary Millicent dabbing at his forehead. A squadron of lawyers hovers over him, afraid of his next move. And they should be. He declares that he’s going to take matters into his own hands, forcing her out by any means necessary. And his first order of business will be stealing her beloved car. After all, he got his start in the business of being a terrible person by repossessing cars, so how hard can it be? And at first, Herbie gives him no trouble at all. He gets Herbie’s engine going and drives a good distance from the firehouse, congratulating himself aloud all the while. But like his nephew before him, he insults Herbie. And so begins yet another wild ride through the streets of San Francisco.

Suddenly, mid-stunt show, Herbie stops dead and refuses to move, causing a massive pileup. Hawk yowls at a policeman to help him push, and Herbie jolts backwards to smash the police cruiser into a few other cars. Naturally, the officer doesn’t love that, and Hawk only makes things worse by insulting his outfit. The cops try to tow Herbie but he jerks forward, snapping the rope and sending two cop cars flying into each other. As a final middle finger to the man who tried to steal him, Herbie ejects Hawk unceremoniously on the street in front of the enraged police officers. He screams at his lawyers to “get that car, dead or alive”. This script, guys.

On her way out of work at the airport, Nicole hears a bearded man arguing with his mother. She hears him mention his rotten uncle and some amazing, wonderful girl who helped him find his spine, and smiles as she goes over to his side. It’s Willoughby, of course, donning a ridiculous fake beard to hide from Hawk’s men who are surely watching him. But he’s all brave now that he’s got Nicole back, and he’s willing to help her whatever it takes. Meanwhile, Herbie takes Mrs. Steinmetz grocery shopping. She fails to notice Hawk’s lawyers hot on her tail, but Herbie sees them and does all kinds of wild stunts to escape. All the while, Mrs. Steinmetz just thinks they’re taking a weird detour. Through a fancy hotel. Over the rails of the Golden Gate Bridge. You know, as you do. Incidentally, the Sheraton Palace Hotel bit was only allowed if Herbie was made completely drip-proofed and specially built to run on batteries instead of gasoline. Herbie is the first electric vehicle!

Mrs. Steinmetz returns from her lovely little drive with absolutely no corporate goons chasing her to find Willoughby’s back! Nicole makes her promise she won’t try to hook her and Willoughby up, but you know, come to think of it, she forgot to get broccoli while she was doing her shopping. Not only that, but there’s a lovely detour down the beach on the way to the store they should really check out. Nicole knows exactly what she’s doing, but gets into Herbie anywhere. Shock! Amazement! The Love Bug zooms off to the beach so the two can have some romantic time together. Meanwhile, Hawk’s guys bribe a fisherman into blocking the road and trapping the lovebirds on the beach until his nefarious plans are complete.

Lest we forget how very badly Nicole needs therapy, she can’t believe Willoughby called their situation because that’s not a thing that happens to real people. And… wow, girl, I’m aroace and I’ve heard that word thrown around, what is your deal? Speaking of romance, this just happens to be the same beach where Captain Steinmetz proposed to Mrs. Steinmetz. And the absolute pinnacle of romance comes when Nicole apologizes for beating Willoughby up and gives him permission to hit her back. There is so much to unpack there I don’t even know where to begin, but Willoughby doesn’t see a need for all that. Instead, he just lays a big old kiss on her. All the while, Herbie chases seagulls like a dog which is very cute, but it’s time to go home. Not until Willoughby finds his spine and orders him to stop does he allow the humans to get inside.

Of course, when they try to get home they find the road closed. That’s no problem for Herbie; he doesn’t need roads! He drives right into the water, bobbing along at the bottom of the beautiful briny sea… until they spot a shark swimming behind them. Nothing comes out of that, though. Like, literally nothing. Not an action sequence, not a chase, just one throwaway line and it’s back to driving on top of the water. They stop a very stereotypical surfer dude for directions, and he’s so totally shocked to see a Volkswagen riding the waves that he wipes out. I guess it’s supposed to be the equivalent of the hippies in the first movie, a topical reference to the cool kids counter culture of the time, but it’s not nearly as funny as “we’re allllll prisoners, chickie baby”.

Speaking of not funny, the mood changes sharply when our couple get home. They find an ransacked firehouse empty of everything except Mrs. Steinmetz crying on the staircase. Hawk’s men came in and took everything. Well, we can’t have sad moments in 70’s Disney movies, so they break in to Hawk’s storage units to get Mrs. Steinmetz’s things back. Willoughby struggles to pick the lock but ain’t nobody got time for that so Herbie just smashes the door down. It works. Of course they set off a security alarm which, in Hawk’s egotistical fashion, is a recording of his voice instead of a blaring siren. Mrs. Steinmetz don’t care, so Team Good guys creeps through the shelves pursued by two security guards. And one of the security guards is none other than our good friend with no neck, Norm Grabowski! We haven’t seen him since the Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, and this was his final Disney performance.

As everyone makes their way through the gloom, music blares to life behind them! It’s the orchestrion and Old Number 22, calling out to them! And everything else is with them! The security guards hear the noise, of course, and catch up to them, but Mrs. Steinmetz still don’t care and sasses them as only a grandma can. Meanwhile, a Hot Wheels Herbie trundles along an obvious miniature set to dump a poorly Chroma-keyed avalanche of stuff in between his friends and the security guards. Seriously, the special effects in the first movie were so good. What happened? I don’t expect photorealistic CGI in 1974, but there was better Chromakey and model work in films made in the 60s.

With the goons stalled and the stuff loaded into Old Number 22, Herbie pushes the derelict street car into the street. Speaking of derelicts, some old drunk named Judson lets himself on, thinking it’s an ordinary trolley. He wastes no time in flirting shamelessly with a completely nonchalant Mrs. Steinmetz, because he’s not getting any younger and forty years is a long time to be alone with cows. Anyway, he looks a lot like her dead husband so she’s willing t humor him when he tells her she’s pretty. Meanwhile, the security goons inform Hawk of what’s happened. Hawk is just as happy about this as you might expect, and sends a squadron of nondescript bad guy cars to chase Old Number 22 through the streets, over some poor guy’s pretzel cart, and through a fancy garden party. I’ve run out of ways to describe car chases. In the end, Team Good Guys gives Team Bad Guys the slip and Judson decides that he’s come to his stop and leaves with a promise to see Mrs. Steinmetz again.

Mrs. Steinmetz is now completely and utterly done playing games with Mr. Hawk. Despite Nicole’s pleas for her not to make Hawk angry, Mrs. Steinmetz and Herbie zoom off to Hawk’s office. He’s inside getting a massage from his secretary, which is more than a little weird and creepy. He’s got a whole new retinue of lawyers because he fired the old ones, but to his fury they won’t just illegally give him a permit to tear down the firehouse so he roars at them to get out of here. If he just had peace and quiet he could think his way out of this… so some guy starts loudly washing the windows outside. The guy is completely unphased by Hawk’s bellowing and dips out without even rinsing the soap off the windows.

Peace and quiet or no peace and quiet, Hawk does get a wonderful, awful idea. He calls up the head of an independent wrecking company named Frank Loostgarten with a very special job for him. At first, Loostgarten hesitates because A) Hawk unceremoniously fired him like he’s done to so many others and B) this is very illegal, but money talks. Incidentally, Frank Loostgarten’s face might not be familiar, but big Disney fans like ourselves might know his voice! He played several characters on Disney Afternoon shows, including Duckworth in the original Ducktales and Sugar Ray Lizard on Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers. More importantly (to me), he was the voice of Dreamfinder on the original Journey into Imagination at Epcot, back when it was actually good!

It just so happens that the window-washer’s recently vacated platform is large enough to accommodate a Volkswagen Beetle. What a strange coincidence. Mrs. Steinmetz sneaks the keys off the washer’s belt and lets herself and Herbie right on. Willoughby catches up just in time to see the little car rising up to the 28th floor. He clings to the edge in a desperate attempt to obey Nicole’s request to keep her out of trouble. It takes her an annoyingly long time to notice him but she eventually lets him into Herbie to join her at Hawk’s office.

They arrive just in time to hear the tail end of Hawk’s chat with Loostgarten, so Mrs. Steinmetz sprays bubbles directly into his office. But Herbie’s not done. He drives right off the platform and chases a terrified Hawk through his foam-filed office. He can’t even escape the vengeful Beetle by running onto the balcony, and Herbie is 100% ready to ram him off the edge. Mrs. Steinmetz stops him in the nick of time by threatening to take him to a used car dealer, and they all go home to figure out a way to stop Loostgarten.

Nicole has a plan, but putting it into practice proves a little bit tricky, especially since she’s giving Willoughby the silent treatment for not stopping Mrs. Steinmetz from seeing Hawk. Because that’s yet another mark of a healthy relationship. Joke’s on her, though, because Willoughby knows exactly what she needs to know! They’ve been wracking their brains to find Hawk’s address, but he knows it because, duh, he’s his nephew. Perhaps that should have been the first stop. But whatever, they got what they needed. So Willoughby calls Loostgarten pretending to be Hawk, giving him the address of a building he needs demolished instead of the firehouse. He does such a good impression of his uncle that it’s almost like he’s lip synching to a recording of Keenan Wynn. It’s so perfect Loostgarten instantly agrees to his “boss’s” orders.

And then things get really weird. Hawk has trouble sleeping after nearly being murdered by a sentient car, so he calls up his doctor. Clearly tired of this nonsense, the doctor advises him to try counting sheep. So he does. Except as he falls asleep, the sheep have the number 53 painted on their wool. And then they’re not sheep at all, but little Volkswagens jumping the fence. He runs from the Herbies through the woods, but they give chase, snarling through nasty big pointy teeth sticking out of their hoods. Things take a distressingly racist turn when a tribe of Herbies in war bonnets dance around a bound Hawk and throw tomahawks from their antennae to scalp him. Then we go back to mind-bending surrealism when we fade to Hawk atop the Empire State Building, menaced by a circle of flying Herbies squirting oil at him. It’s bananas. And there was even a fourth sequence with evil doctor Herbies plotting to remove his “carburetor” but this was deemed too scary.

The bizarre fever dream comes to an abrupt end when the phone rings. It’s Loostgarten, calling to confirm the address of the building to be demolished. Still groggy and freaked out and not thinking clearly, Hawk mumbles that of course that’s the right address. So Loostgarten shrugs and gets to work. Only when the wrecking ball smashes through his back wall does Hawk realize he spoke to soon. And by that point, there’s nothing Hawk can do but scream and chase Loostgarten with a 2×4. As you do. The story makes the papers, with headlines announcing that Hawk changed his mind to spare the firehouse. Hawk even calls Mrs. Steinmez to apologize, since the incident with his house made him realize how horrible he’s been. Plot twist, it’s all an act and he has every intention of using his money and power to retract the article and destroy the firehouse anyway. Now it’s personal.

He accomplished his goal of putting Team Good Guys’ guard down, and they all decide to celebrate their victory at the same restaurant where Willoughby got brained with a lobster. Except, weirdly, Mrs. Steinmetz hasn’t shown up, leaving Willoughby and Nicole alone together. That gives Willoughby the opportunity to start rambling about his great-grandfather and Nicole thinks it’s a proposal for some reason? But she gets up in the middle of it to call Mrs. Steinmetz, who had no intention of coming over at all! The nerve! She’s having a romantic dinner of her own, with candlelight, flowers, and Mr. Judson telling her all about his cows.

Suddenly, Mrs. Steinmetz flings herself to the floor. She heard something down stairs. It’s a whole squadron of demolition vehicles gunning right for the firehouse, with Hawk leading the charge! She takes shelter in Judson’s arms as the whole house starts shaking, smashing the portrait of Captain Steinmetz to pieces. Herbie isn’t about to just let this happen, so he takes matters into his own front wheels and zooms off to fetch . Along the way he sends Hawk into such a PTSD episode that he hides under his own car until he’s gone. He pulls it together quickly though, and goes right back to threatening Mrs. Steinmetz.

Oh, about Herbie getting reinforcements? Yeah. Apparently all VW Bugs are sentient. Because that’s something that’s been established adequately. With Willoughby and Nicole inside, Herbie careens through the streets, picking up his Beetle buddies from garages, parking lots, even a junkyard. And a drive-in. The psychedelic-painted car from the drive in contains two young kids smooching in the back, which isn’t really noteworthy, except that we see them as a still frame green-screened over the moving background. Twice. It’s bananas. The only reason I can think of for it is maybe censorship? Like they were getting too hot and heavy and the MPAA got weird about it? Then why not cut the whole bit? It’s not like it’s plot relevant.

Actually, Mrs. Steinmetz and Mr. Judson hold down the fort pretty well. They raise the firehouse flag and spray down workers with the firehouse. It works so well Mrs. Steinmetz rewards Judson by giving him the honor of wearing the sainted Captain Steinmetz’s fireman’s helmet. Unfortunately, the hose bursts. And that was their only weapon. Hawk prepares to give the final signal, spelling doom for the firehouse… and the cavalry arrives! A whole army of Beetles swarms in, with Herbie at the head of the pack. Hawk freaks out and retreats, and for some reason all these other guys follow suit despite driving heavy machinery that could easily crush these Beetles. We get some shenanigans with Beetles chasing things around and Herbie tries to murder Hawk again. Willoughby only gets him to knock it off by threatening not to let him come to the wedding.

Wait, what wedding? Well, it’s a Love Bug movie, so of course our two leads tie the knot no matter how little chemistry they have together. The orchestrion plays the wedding march, Old Number 22 rings the wedding bells, and Mr. Judson and Mrs. Steinmetz look like there might be another wedding coming up pretty soon. But most importantly, Herbie drives Nicole and Willoughby down the aisle, past a congregation made up entirely of Volkswagen Beetles. And as always, the honeymoon is all up to Herbie!

It is abundantly clear that this movie was written primarily for car stunts. The plot is definitely an afterthought here. It’s a completely generic, by-the-numbers “save the farm” story, with a recycled villain and a milquetoast hero. What’s more, the car stunts this time around where nowhere near as impressive as the ones in Love Bug. I lambasted the awkward Chroma-Key and bad greenscreen several times, but really, it’s just embarrassing after the brilliant practical stunt work from the original.

And yet, with all these flaws, I didn’t totally hate this. I’m always a fan of a character who’s ready to throw down at a moment’s notice, and Herbie’s even more scrappy than he was in the original. Hawk may not be original, but he’s always a lot of fun. Likewise, Mrs. Steinmetz lacks the goofy charm of her nephew Tennessee, but she’s still a cool sassy old lady. Add to all that a ton of buck wild surrealism, and you have a movie that, while not exactly good, still manages to be enjoyable.

CHARACTERS

Willoughby Whitfield is no Jim Douglas. I praised his predecessor for his character arc, and how Herbie helped him become a better person. Willoughby doesn’t really have that. He’s just a dumb, naive doormat the entire movie. The only change is that now Nicole is walking all over him instead of Hawk. It’s really hard to root for such a pathetic character when he shows only a few little glimmers of a spine. As is starting to become a theme with these movies, Ken Berry was known more for television shows like F-Troop than movies and it shows.

Nicole Harris has anger management issues and it makes me worry for Willoughby. It’s a very obvious ham-handed attempt by out-of-touch studio execs to show a “strong independent woman”, but they fell into the trap of using “violence” as shorthand for “strength.” It’s kinda gross, and perpetuates the common view of female-on-male violence as comedic. Now, I’m not trying to undersell the seriousness of female victims of male violence. I’m just saying I don’t care what gender you are, beating your partner is wrong and not funny and seeing it played like this is really icky. Overall, this is a much better movie than Stephanie Powers’ last role in The Boatniks, but I liked her character Kate Fairchild in that a lot better.

Mrs. Steinmetz is a much better female lead. Sure, she’s a stereotypical batty old lady, but she’s a lot more competent than the people around her give her credit for. It’s pretty great. She’s got some great one-liners and several awesome moments where she shows that she does not care about Hawk’s ego. It’s great. Most of her awesomeness can be attributed to the great Helen Hayes, the First Lady of American Theatre. She was one of the first EGOT winners and won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her loooong acting career, which began in 1905. And she has another Disney connection! Remember James MacArthur from Swiss Family Robinson and Third Man on the Mountain? She’s his mom!

Alonso Hawk is back! We last saw him terrorizing Professor Brainard in the Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. I guess he’s moved from Medfield to San Francisco? Either way, that means that the Herbie movies are part of the endlessly expanding Medfield/Midvale/Merrivale Cinematic Universe. Marvel who? Jokes aside, Keenan Wynn spends the entire movie cranked up to 11 chowing down on every splinter of scenery put in front of him and it is glorious. His performance alone provides a solid half the movie’s entertainment value and I am here for it.

Mr. Judson probably didn’t need to be here. His plotline comes out of nowhere in the last half hour and doesn’t really go anywhere. He’s a lot of fun, though, so I don’t really know that I want him gone. If he’s going to be here, though, it’s a role that deserves to be bigger. He’s a lot of fun, and the idea of Mrs. Steinmetz letting go of her dead husband and finding happiness with someone new could have been an interesting subplot. Heck, Willoughby and Nicole are so dysfunctional that could have been the main plot! The role was originally slated to go to Walter Brennan (The Gnome-Mobile, Family Band), but he was too ill to do it. Instead, it went to another TV actor, John McIntire from Wagon Train and The Virginian, because we just can’t give it a rest with the Westerns.

MUSIC

This is a very sad day. This movie was the very final film with a score provided by the legendary George Bruns, who provided brilliant music for over twenty Disney films including Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood. For the most part, this movie sounds very similar to the music from The Love Bug, for obvious reasons. Most of the memorable parts of the score come from Herbies delightfully peppy theme music, which I didn’t realize how much I missed until I heard it again. There’s clever use of music elsewhere, too, notably from the orchestrion communicating through specific tunes. I was also impressed by the dark, tense music that played throughout Hawk’s scenes, especially in the warehouse, and whatever the heck was happening in the nightmare. Who uses whining dogs as an instrument?

ARTISTRY

My screenshotting program missed all of the special effects shots, but they’re bad this time around. I’ve said it before, but they’re really really bad. You can see the outlines of the greenscreen around the actors at points! Haven’t we learned how to get rid of that from movies like Mary Poppins and Three Caballeros? It’s very rough. The matte paintings are the most conspicuous they’ve been in a while, too- Peter Ellenshaw, this ain’t.

Some other things I’ve noticed about Frank V. Phillips’ cinematography this time around are how very dark the last third of the movie is. It’s really hard to see anything, which is unfortunate especially for the climactic Beetle chase. The balcony scene was really well-shot, creating a palpable sense of vertigo that really sells Hawk’s terror of Herbie, so it’s not like they’re completely incompetent behind the camera. Only mostly incompetent.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Clearly, Robert Stevenson was having a rough day. This movie is a whole mess, untouched by the skillful hand that usually make his films rise above the toxic sludge of the 1970s. And yet, the strength of (most of) its cast turns what might have been a disaster of a sequel to something that, while still objectively bad, manages to be a whole lot of fun!

Favorite scene: “HeLsInKi?!?! Hgndsf haeru ADSHJ AEWAXnsa dieawsj dsaDCSSD AAAAAAH” A phonetic interpretation. I love Keenan Wynn.

Final rating: 4/10. It’s not quite so bad it’s good but I’d still check it out. If only for the villain.