Vierzig Draufgänger

The Walt Disney company serves up some memorable schmaltz with this adaptation of a book by MacKinlay Kantor. Fred MacMurray is inherently endearing as Lemuel Siddons, travelling with a jazz band in 1930 who decides to set down roots in a small town. Going to work as a store clerk, he has aspirations of being a lawyer, but he soon discovers what his true passion in life will be: leading a Boy Scout troop. And so he does, seeing them through the good and bad times for the next 20 years, and becoming a father figure to troubled Whitey (15 year old Kurt Russell, in his first Disney film), whose biological dad (Sean McClory) is a hopeless alcoholic.

Wonderful performances by all concerned - Lillian Gish plays a rich but generous local, Elliott Reid her cranky, greedy nephew, the radiant Vera Miles as Lem's sweetheart, Charlie Ruggles as kindly storekeeper John Everett Hughes, Parley Baer as the mayor - go a long way towards keeping this feature watchable for an admittedly overlong two hours and 12 minutes. The comedic sequence where Lem and his current troop get taken aback by soldiers playing war games doesn't really add anything to the story, though, and could have been taken out without detracting from it. Overall, the film IS very corny, but it's delivered with such square-jawed conviction that the viewer won't much mind being manipulated so frequently.

A nice depiction of small town America from the '30s to the '50s also helps, along with a welcome sense of humour at times. (Lem's troop in the '30s includes kids with such colourful nicknames as "Hoodoo" and "Beefy".) And it is refreshing to see a scrupulously wholesome family film inspire its viewers, young and old, with its portrayal of the Boy Scout tradition.

The excellent cast includes such other performers as Luana Patten, Ken Murray, Donald May (as the grown-up version of the Kurt Russell character), Steve Franken, William Reynolds, Richard Bakalyan, Willis Bouchey, and Adam Williams.

"Follow Me, Boys" will be too sentimental for some viewers to take, but others will find it utterly delightful.

Seven out of 10.

I first saw this movie during the mid 1980's when I was at Boy Scout ski retreat. We were staying at a church (cheap lodging) and watched this movie twice (Friday and Saturday nite). The first time our troop saw we were intrigued by movie. There are few movies about Boy Scouts out there so this movie was a delight. The second time being rowdy teens the Scouts began to pandeomine and ad-lib the lines. For example during the scene when the wife tells Fred McMurray that she can not have any kids. One of the boys shouted "Don't touch her, she's sterile" A delightful movie, a bit corny at times (the behavior seems outdated compared to modern times) but still an excellent movie.

I've seen a couple of reviews decry this movie, 50 years after the fact, for poor values or "teaching the kids wrong things." That is the silliest thing I have seen. This movie was a good movie in 1966, and remains so fifty years later. The Scouts NEVER have changed their mission to help boys grow into upright men; America has decided for some reason that upright men are bad and that good values are bad.

Too bad. In what remains of the real USA, men still are men, not women. The Scouts taught generations of boys how to be upright, forthright men. If that is bad, call this former Scout a bad man...and my sons...and my grandson.

We are what holds this country together while the critics try to tear it apart. By the grace of God, that shall never happen.

Follow Me, Boys! is a feel good film with an impressive cast. It's a snapshot of a time when there was a true sense of community that we rarely see today. A time when personal values carried more weight than profits.

The film delivers a powerful message of just how much difference a single person can make by leading through example. I think with today's media glut of flashy superstardom and wealth and narcissism, many us have lost sight of how much force there is in simply being a kind and honest person. I certainly walked away re-evaluating some of my motivations and behaviors. Just how do I affect the people around me on a daily basis?

One of Walt Disney's best feature films from the Sixties, Follow Me Boys is a two hour tribute to the Boy Scouts and to one man's dedication to them. And the odd thing is that Fred MacMurray got into Scouting for the most basic of all human reasons.

Fred MacMurray arrives at this whistle stop of a Midwest town while with a traveling band in the Roaring Twenties. He's frustrated both trying to study law and play the saxophone for Ken Murray's band. On an impulse he's so taken with the town that he makes a decision right there to stay. He sees a help wanted sign in the window of Charlie Ruggles general store and Ruggles hires him right there. And of course there's the sight of Vera Miles working at the bank across the street that really makes him want to stay.

In fact at a town meeting MacMurray suggests that a Scout Troop be formed as an activity for the kids. When Elliott Reid who is Miles's boss at the bank and MacMurray's rival demurs saying he doesn't have the time to be a Scoutmaster, MacMurray moves right on in, mainly to make an impression with Miles.

After that the Scouts become his life and MacMurray like George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life becomes the leading citizen of that town. He's the moulder of the youth and biggest influence on their character. And in one case he and Miles become foster parents to Kurt Russell and save him from what would have been a dissolute life.

There's a little bit of Boys Town in this film because there aren't any really bad boys here as Father Flanagan opined. But the main influence on this film adapted from a MacKinley Kantor story is Goodbye Mr. Chips. MacMurray does everything, but teach school for them.

Best scenes are when the kids are trapped in some army war games and through Boy Scout ingenuity come through it just fine.

Follow Me Boys gives Fred MacMurray one of his best roles in a Disney feature and it holds up well for today's audience.