Demain... des hommes

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 One of the boys shouted "Don't touch her, she's sterile" A delightful movie, a bit corny at times (the behavior seems outdated compared to modern times) but still an excellent movie.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.

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 was very pleased to see that Disney finally released this movie on DVD. I have been wanting to see it for a long time, but not only because it was another Disney film with Fred MacMurray. Rather, I am a Scout Leader, and can relate to many of the things in the picture, and that made it a special delight for me.

This was Kurt Russell's first Disney picture. He is wonderful here as the reluctant boy with a drunken father. While he loves his dad, he is embarrassed when others see him. I have seen scouts in these positions.

With my two sons in Scouting, they enjoyed this movie very much. Even my daughter, who is a Girl Scout, liked it too. A measure of a great film is when it makes you want to see it again.

Out of my usual four-star rating system, I would give this: ***.5

Just thought I would share what little I know about this movie.

Mackinlay Kantor was born in my hometown of Webster City, Iowa. He belonged to Boy Scout troop #17. He would have been 16 years old in 1920 so that gives you an idea when he was in scouts. My understanding is that he wrote the book to honor the Boy scouts and their leaders and he wanted to do so because of the great experiences he had a scout. I don't know how much of the movie is true but I do know there is at least one thing in the movie which reflects Webster City. It's nothing more than the name of a street but it's something anyway.

When I was a scout in the mid 70's we met in the upstairs of an old school building. All over the walls were posters which listed the winners of some of the annual contests that the troop held each year. Mackinlay Kantor's name was up there several times for having won several contests.

The name of my Scout leader in the 70's was a man named John McMurray. The man who founded Troop 17 in Webster City was a man named Murray McMurray. Their family has run a chick hatchery of all things in Webster City for years and it is still a thriving business today. Murray would have been Mackinlay Kantors Scout leader and I'm sure a big reason why he wrote the book. Murry, by the way, was a local banker who started the hatchery on the side. So he wasn't a musician like Lem was per say but his commitment to the town and to scouts is obviously reflected in the book and movie.

At this writing it is Memorial Day weekend 2006. There is a reunion being held this weekend in Webster City for all scouts who ever were in Troop 17. Among other things John McMurray will be speaking and concerning the movie Follow Me Boys? They will be be playing it twice for everybody there to go and see.

If you grew up in Webster City and were a scout this movie holds a little bit more than the usual emotions.