The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again

Still holds up today. Classic comedy for the entire family.

First of all, congratulations are in order for Tim Conway for hilarity,and the unforgettable Kenneth Mars' outrageous funny Marshall Wooly Bill Hitchcock character whose performance left me in stitches from laughter! I laughed long after seeing the film when I remembered how did Marshal Wooly Bill Hitchcock go after the Apple Dumpling Gang. In my opinion this sequel to the first Apple Dumpling Gang was a great improvement from its original version in both comedic content and character development, and its story line. I highly recommend this sequel for clean family fun and entertainment. Steve Horvath, Chicago, IL

I like Don Knotts in what he does as an actor. This movie is just some good clean fun wrapped up in hilarity! Tim Conway is also good at his role in the movie. I like this movie because it is something that everybody can watch and enjoy!

Tim Conway and Don Knotts proved to be so popular in the first Apple Dumpling Gang movie that the Magic Kingdom felt they had to be reteamed for The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. Leaving behind the two children they were involved with in the first film, our two outlaw wannabes find themselves enlisting in the cavalry after unwittingly helping in a bank robbery.

Conway and Knotts's fiddlefooted fumblings are happening at the same time that army supplies are being systematically robbed from Fort Concho with commandant Harry Morgan having no clue why. And Morgan's got other things on his mind as well. His daughter Elyssa Davalos is arriving to marry her fiancé, Lieutenant Robert Pine. But a most amorous private played by Tim Matheson keeps getting in the way.

It was a stroke of genius at the Magic Kingdom when someone got the idea to team Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Like Bing Crosby and Bob Hope who had very successful careers as solos, when they teamed they really clicked. I only imagine that the individual projects both men were involved in kept them from doing even more films together. Each had a really good feel for the timing of the other and the comedy styles blended well.

Disney Studios gave them a good cast in support as they always did. Ruth Buzzi has a nice turn as a blind lady who keeps trying to raise the town alarm about a bank robbery. But the absolute best was Kenneth Mars as Marshal Wooly Bill Hitchcock, a man who can't stand to lose. A feared legend of the west, he can't close the deal on Knotts and Conway, because strange fate keeps intervening. He gets driven to madness the same way Inspector Dreyfus is with Clousseau.

Best scene in the film are Conway and Knotts as they bungle their way into burning the whole fort down, a bit taken from the Gary Cooper comedy, Cassanova Brown. Second best scene is Knotts and Conway in drag as saloon entertainers, taken of course from Some Like It Hot.

Reused material or not, the stuff is very funny and more than kids will get laughs from two comic geniuses in The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again.

Don't watch this if you are sad. There's a strange dynamic in humor, having to do with happy endings. Happy isn't happy.

The standard model is two dummies who do everything wrong. As the story progresses, more and more damage is done, and the plight of the comics gets worse and worse. For some reason, their disaster makes us feel lighter. Its such a strong model that when we deviate from it, we notice.

Then, at some point, someone — possibly Disney — changed the formula to what we have here. The guys are stupid as usual. They destroy everything as usual. They humiliate the policeman (or other authority figure) as usual. What's new is that it all adds up to them being celebrated for some unintended good.

For some reason, the effect is to make us feel worse. It was only with Peter Seller's Jacques Clouseau that the hero was so profoundly clueless (and French, extra clueless because he was french) that the adjusted formula works.

The only value in this is the performance of Ken Mars as the tortured sheriff.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.