← Back to Reviews
in
The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band
Walt Disney continued his search for the kind of magic he created with Mary Poppins with another dull and pointless live action musical called The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band that tries to be a musical for the entire family, not just Disney's normally intended demographic of children. The film has earned a footnote in cinema history though because it features the film debut of one of the industry's most beloved actresses.
The film takes place in the 1880's where we are introduced to the Bower family, a large family who live on a farm but they seem to spend the majority of their time as a band that they've formed with Grandpa Bower (3 time Oscar winner Walter Brennan) at the baton. Grandpa has written a song for the re-election campaign of Grover Cleveland and is thrilled when the family is chosen to perform the song at the next Democratic National Convention. There is a romance going on as well between a newspaper editor (John Davidson) and Grandpa's eldest granddaughter Alice (Lesley Ann Warren). Mr. Editor persuades the Bower clan to move to the Dakota territory where Grandpa and the editor becomes involved in a political scandal revolving around the plan to divide Dakota into two states, allowing more congressional eligibility. There's also the fact that Grandpa is democrat and just about everyone else in the story is a republican.
Prior to this film, Disney had mounted a lavish and overblown musical called The Happiest Millionaire, which also featured John Davidson and Lesley Ann Warren as the young lovers and apparently Disney thought they really had something with these two, because they decided to recreate another entire film around them, but I'm just not sure who the intended demographic was here. In the 1960's, Disney Studios were the unrivaled leader in children's entertainment, but I really don't see what appeal this story about political machinations almost a century prior would have had with children. It wasn't as long as The Happiest Millionaire, but it sure felt like it. I think if the story had been more about the title family and not all that political mumbo-jumbo, screenwriter Lowell S. Hawley might have had something here. The original score by Mary Poppins composers Richard M and Robert Sherman is uninteresting and Michael O'Herilhy's leaden direction didn't help either.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the cast...Buddy Ebsen took time out from playing Jed Clampett to play the head of the Bower clan, allowing Ebsen the opportunity to sing and dance for the first time since the 1930's. Film vets like Richard Deacon and Wally Cox appear in supporting roles and the Bower children were played by some future stars like Kurt Russell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Bobby Riha, and Jon Walmsley, who would earn his fifteen minutes a few years later playing Jason on The Waltons. There's even an appearance by Butch Patrick, who you might remember as Eddie Munster, but this film made history when it introduced a young dance billed as Goldie Jeanne Hawn to the screen, billed as "Giggly Dancer." She is in a production number near the end of the film called "West o' the Wild Missouri"...she actually has a nice amount of screentime and even gets a single line to speak...this film would be the first meeting between Hawn and future common-law husband Kurt Russell though their romance didn't really happen until they made Swing Shift.
The idea of a family band was a really good one, but the film forgets all about the band about twenty minutes in and that's where the movie falls apart.
Walt Disney continued his search for the kind of magic he created with Mary Poppins with another dull and pointless live action musical called The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band that tries to be a musical for the entire family, not just Disney's normally intended demographic of children. The film has earned a footnote in cinema history though because it features the film debut of one of the industry's most beloved actresses.
The film takes place in the 1880's where we are introduced to the Bower family, a large family who live on a farm but they seem to spend the majority of their time as a band that they've formed with Grandpa Bower (3 time Oscar winner Walter Brennan) at the baton. Grandpa has written a song for the re-election campaign of Grover Cleveland and is thrilled when the family is chosen to perform the song at the next Democratic National Convention. There is a romance going on as well between a newspaper editor (John Davidson) and Grandpa's eldest granddaughter Alice (Lesley Ann Warren). Mr. Editor persuades the Bower clan to move to the Dakota territory where Grandpa and the editor becomes involved in a political scandal revolving around the plan to divide Dakota into two states, allowing more congressional eligibility. There's also the fact that Grandpa is democrat and just about everyone else in the story is a republican.
Prior to this film, Disney had mounted a lavish and overblown musical called The Happiest Millionaire, which also featured John Davidson and Lesley Ann Warren as the young lovers and apparently Disney thought they really had something with these two, because they decided to recreate another entire film around them, but I'm just not sure who the intended demographic was here. In the 1960's, Disney Studios were the unrivaled leader in children's entertainment, but I really don't see what appeal this story about political machinations almost a century prior would have had with children. It wasn't as long as The Happiest Millionaire, but it sure felt like it. I think if the story had been more about the title family and not all that political mumbo-jumbo, screenwriter Lowell S. Hawley might have had something here. The original score by Mary Poppins composers Richard M and Robert Sherman is uninteresting and Michael O'Herilhy's leaden direction didn't help either.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the cast...Buddy Ebsen took time out from playing Jed Clampett to play the head of the Bower clan, allowing Ebsen the opportunity to sing and dance for the first time since the 1930's. Film vets like Richard Deacon and Wally Cox appear in supporting roles and the Bower children were played by some future stars like Kurt Russell, Pamelyn Ferdin, Bobby Riha, and Jon Walmsley, who would earn his fifteen minutes a few years later playing Jason on The Waltons. There's even an appearance by Butch Patrick, who you might remember as Eddie Munster, but this film made history when it introduced a young dance billed as Goldie Jeanne Hawn to the screen, billed as "Giggly Dancer." She is in a production number near the end of the film called "West o' the Wild Missouri"...she actually has a nice amount of screentime and even gets a single line to speak...this film would be the first meeting between Hawn and future common-law husband Kurt Russell though their romance didn't really happen until they made Swing Shift.
The idea of a family band was a really good one, but the film forgets all about the band about twenty minutes in and that's where the movie falls apart.