Superpapá

I must have been eight years old with nothing else to do one Saturday in 1974 when this screened at the local cinema. I went along knowing nothing about it but assumed it would involve a dad who is secretly a superhero. I can't remember at what point I resigned myself to Dad never getting into costume but I spent most of the film rather confused and alienated by what turned out to be a rather gentle generation-gap comedy about a father trying to manipulate his daughter's love life. 45 years later, having hardly thought about it in the meantime, I thought I'd see how it looks from this distance. Well, it's not great. It's a mildly interesting glimpse at 70s culture seen through a Disney lens. For the first 20 minutes of rather forced humour I wondered if I should have bothered but I warmed to it a little as it went on. Probably the only reason it stuck in my mind was a mildly scary confrontation between the dad and an unhinged hippie artist called Klutch on his bizzarely decked-out houseboat/studio. It's hard to guess who Disney was aiming at with this. Young kids would have been bored and confused, as I was. Adults would find it juvenile, and teenagers would probably rather just find it a bit lame. The best you can say is that it's not that bad. You might relate to it if you have a teenage daughter, or if they will sit still long enough you could watch it with your kids (or grandkids) and tell them about the bad old days before Star Wars when, if there wasn't a Doug McClure film out that week, something like this was quite often the best a kid could hope for from a trip to the cinema.

It's truly sad to see a good cast wasted in this painfully awful alleged "comedy" from the Disney people, but there's an academic interest in "Superdad" as well, to wit: If you want 90 minute capsule definition of everything that was wrong with Disney during the years when Ron Miller was running the studio (1967-81), just watch, or more accurately, endure this film.

I'll expand on this. Miller, who was Disney's son-in-law and an associate producer at the studio, took over the production reigns at Walt Disney's death in late 1966 (Brother Roy Disney still held the purse strings and ran the financial end of things, as his son Roy, Jr., does today). Miller had the technical know-how, but not the genius of picking the right properties and targeting his audience that Walt Disney did, and it's interesting that many of the most successful films made during the Miller years ("The Love Bug," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "The Rescuers," "Freaky Friday," and a few others) were films that were still in the planning stage at Walt's death. Instead of real creativity, Miller adopted a "What would Walt do?" policy, and the result was mostly negative. Disney films made during Walt's lifetime, even the occasional box-office failure, were always marked by distinctiveness and creativity, whereas most of Miller's films for Disney were marked by blandness and derivitiveness. Thus, for every "Love Bug," you got at least two films like "Million Dollar Duck," "Gus," "Candleshoe," innumerable "Love Bug" sequels that got worse with each picture, and the film we're ostensibly discussing here, "Superdad."

To see genuinely talented people such as Kurt Russell, Bruno Kirby, and the late Joe Flynn wasting their time with this drek is painful enough to watch as it is, but to see Bob Crane in the truly thankless title role is almost beyond the power of words to express. After the cancellation of "Hogan's Heroes" three years earlier, Crane tried to expand into movies, like his idol, Jack Lemmon. Unlike Lemmon, though, who always came off as likable, even in an unsympathetic role, there was always something vaguely unpleasent, even a little sleazy, about Crane's personality. It was that quality, undoubtedly, that kept him trapped in terms of the roles he played up until his sudden, mysterious, and still unsolved murder in 1978. Crane would certainly appreciate the irony that he's become a bigger celebrity in death than he ever was in life. At the time this film was made, he seemed like just another washed-up ex-TV star trying to make a go of it in films.

Tightly wound and traditional lawyer and family man Charlie McCready takes a lot of pride in his daughter Wendy (Kathleen Cody) but disapproves of her group of friends collectively known as "the Gang" whom she has known since childhood and especially Wendy's boyfriend Bart (Kurt Russell) because he believes them to have no ambition and are a drag on Wendy. As Charlie tries to wrest Windy from her carefree friends towards more eligible persons, complications arise.

Superdad's origins begin in 1966 when the film was under the working title A Son-in-Law for Charlie McCready. Originally intended for Gig Young in the lead role, Gig dropped from the film due to "creative differences" and was replaced by Bob Crane who had found himself less in demand following the cancellation of Hogan's Heroes. Superdad was yet another entry in the formula comedies that served as Disney's primary output during the 70s and comes to us from writer Joseph L. McEveety who gave us the mediocre Dexter Riley films and the surprisingly decent Barefoot Exectuvie, and is directed by Vincent McEveety who's film The Million Dollar Duck stands as one of the dumbest of this era of Disney comedies. Superdad doesn't feel like a movie and instead feels like three episodes of a not particularly good pre-Rural Purge sitcom daisy chained together and presented to you as a movie.

Like many Disney comedies from around this time, Superdad's approach to culture clash and generation gap humor feel about 10 to 15 years out of date. Much like the Dexter Riley films or Million Dollar Duck, despite a teenage cast they spout hokey dialogue that hasn't evolved much beyond the approach taken from The Absent Minded Professor in 1961. The Scooby-Gang from the original run of Scooby-Doo in 1969 had more believable attempts at character and that was a cartoon with a talking dog, but it also helps that Scooby-Doo didn't treat 60% of its cast as a singular hive-mind character spread across a dozen actors. Bob Crane is massively unlikable as Charlie McCready and while the movie does try to address the generation gap by saying there's no fundamental difference between the teenagers of "today" versus 20 years ago, the movie wants to have its cake and eat it to because despite a message of tolerance and understanding throughout the film the movie also takes potshots at the counterculture movement in what amounts to pretty pandering and toothless commentary.

Superdad is what it is: A bad Disney comedy that feels like a sitcom projected on a bigger screen with no laugh track. There's a reason most people know of this movie from its mention in the heavily fictionalized Bob Crane biopic Auto-Focus or its appearance in the subway scene of the first Charles Bronson Death Wish, because the movie itself is only interesting as a curiosity or background novelty in relation to other more interesting topics. It's not as bad as Million Dollar Duck by virtue of not being as brazenly annoying and stupid, but it's also much lazier.

Southern California lawyer Bob Crane (as Charlie McCready) doesn't like the potentially sexual relationship between beautiful blonde daughter Kathleen Cody (as Wendy) and beach bum boyfriend Kurt Russell (as Bart). First, Mr. Crane decides keep an eye on the kissing couple by joining the youngsters' beach partying gang. This results in some misadventures in water. Later, Crane conspires to send Ms. Cody to a faraway college. Not too smart. With her face and figure, Cody has no trouble attracting collegian attention, and becomes inadvertently engaged in a hippie gang protesting Crane's golfing business partners Joe Flynn (as Cyrus Hershberger) and Dick Van Patten (as Ira Kershaw)...

"Superdad" is the generation gap seen through the rose-colored Disney lens, which results in a sharp focus on fluff.

Canceled television series stars populate the cast. Most notably, Crane had escaped "Hogan's Heroes" and Cody emerged from "Dark Shadows" (both in 1971). Extending his teen years, Mr. Russell plays a secondary role, as does motherly Barbara Rush (as Sue), late of "Peyton Place" (1969). There is a quick pace, along with dependable amusements from all-purpose driver Bruno Kirby (as Stanley Schlimmer), hip octogenarian Judith Lowery (as Mother Barlow), and the Disney regulars. The studio held the film up in favor of "Charley and the Angel" (1973). Bobby Goldsboro's "These Are the Best Times" failed to chart. Nothing could help "Superdad" bridge the box office gap.

***** Superdad (12/14/73) Vincent McEveety ~ Bob Crane, Kathleen Cody, Kurt Russell, Barbara Rush

I wanted to like this film. Really.

After all, any Disney film with Russell, Flynn and even a young Kirby has to have something good, doesn't it?

Well, usually.

As a father who can't stand the thought of letting go of his little girl, Crane is kind of irritating as the "Superdad" of the title.

Did I say "kind of"? Scratch that: VERY irritating.

The main picture in my mind is of Crane screaming like a girl while taking a high water ski jump. After that, I'd just stay home and tell my daughter to go and have a good time.

At least Flynn's around for laughs. Why couldn't he have been the dad? Now that would have been really super.

Two stars, plus a half star extra for Flynn. Way to go, Joe.