La folle escapade

I didn't enjoy a movie this much for quite some time. Brains off, laughter on, push play and enjoy. Many brag about it being unrealistic. Damn, people, this is Disney comedy for kids. It is not supposed to be realistic, it is supposed to be fun and it's very successful in it. For almost two hours I was elementary school boy once again, just relaxing after school and watching good old-fashioned TV. I have no objections to this movie, except maybe car chase scene being too long. I recommend it to everyone with all my heart.

7/10

Duke and Bert played (Eavin and Don Knotts) are two safe-cracking burglars who are out to bust out their big job. They plan to rob the safe of a millionaire. Unfortunately they get entangled with the two grand kids of the millionaire. The grand kids want to run away and force the bank robbers to chaperone them. A comic Disney movie that proves that crime may not pay, but it can be funny.

Maybe if Walt Disney Studios had decided to make a real adaption of O'Henry's Ransom Of Red Chief the results might have come out better. Certainly the story had been used before most successfully by 20th Century Fox in their O'Henry anthology film O'Henry's Full House where Fred Allen and Oscar Levant played the luckless kidnappers of Lee Aaker. But this adaption, credited or not, in No Deposit, No Return is one of the Magic Kingdom's less successful family films.

I have no doubt that originally this was intended for Don Knotts to be once again teamed up with Tim Conway. If that had happened maybe the results would have been better. On the other hand you could believe Darren McGavin was a top professional safe-cracker a lot faster than Conway.

Brother and sister Brad Savage and Kim Richards are on Easter break from their boarding school in the United Kingdom and instead of being with their absentee mother Barbara Feldon, they are going to be spending time with their stuffy grandfather David Niven in Los Angeles. That's a terrific disappointment because Niven's just not a kid's person.

So after ditching chauffeur Bob Hastings sent to pick them up and falling in with crooks McGavin and Knotts, the kids hatch a scheme to stage their own kidnapping in the hopes of raising plane fare to Hong Kong where mom is and for their two accomplices to get out of a mounting gambling debt owed to Vic Tayback.

Kids under the age of 12 might approve of this film. Every adult in the film is positively clueless, including cops Herschel Bernardi and Charles Martin Smith. Having kids be the smartest ones in a film is always guaranteed to please a juvenile audience. But you've got to wonder how Bernardi and Smith ever got on the force and how McGavin, Knotts, and Tayback ever succeeded in a life of crime.

As for David Niven this was one of two films he made for the Magic Kingdom, the other being Candleshoe. That one being set in England took advantage of Niven's background. In No Deposit, No Return, Niven's considerable charm is stretched to the breaking point.

Recommended strictly for grade school kids. I'm sure William Sidney Porter is glad he wasn't given any screen credit for this.

Two would-be safecrackers at Los Angeles airport, nice guys who have 72 hours to pay off a $9K debt to mobsters, wind up as custodians to two pre-teen runaways, siblings out of prep school (with a pet skunk!) who want to fly to Hong Kong to see their mother. The kids get cozy with the not-so-crooked crooks and ransom themselves out to get their friends out of trouble. Out-of-touch Disney comedy with one big slapstick set-piece: the skunk gets loose on the beams of a skyscraper under construction (Don Knotts goes to rescue it and ends up with a bucket stuck on his head). Formula whimsy given a slight professional shine from David Niven and Darren McGavin, but the chattering tykes (Kim Richards and Brad Savage) are a nuisance and Knotts is on auto-pilot. * from ****

in this sort of caper comedy,Darren McGavin and Don Knotss star as a safe cracker and his partner/lookout/getaway driver.both are softhearted and eventually get mixed up in a(sort of)kidnap scheme with a young girl and her brother(who happen to have a penchant for mischief).anyway,the usual hi jinx take place.there's some physical comedy and some silly car chases.there's also some pretty bad overacting.but that's seems par for the course in a lot of Disney comedies form the seventies.it's all mildly amusing for the most part and it's entertainment the whole family can enjoy.for me,No Deposit,No Return is a 6/10