Forgotten Disney Live-Action Movies

[look_hergo]

My stepson informs me that Disney is re-making “Where the Red Fern Grows”. He’s offended because the dogs will be all CGI, and not real dogs at all. WRFG is a favorite tear-jerker in our family. I get laughed at when we read it aloud, because I can’t get through a single page without tearing up at something. (His grandpa is so sweet! Those city kids are so mean! Lil’ Ann almost drowned!)

My most memorable Disney live action film was one where a brother and sister live in a creepy old house that’s haunted (of course). An old doll is involved, and a well, and the ghost is always singing “Frere Jaques” for some reason. They figure out the mystery behind the ghost-girl’s death (drowning in the well?) and there’s a happy ending. Scared the heck out of me when I was seven. Can’t remember the name of it, though. Any help?

[stanger]

My favorite Disney episode of all time was Patrick McGoohan in “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh”, one of several movies McGoohan did for them.

Took me a long time to find a copy on VHS many years ago. Does anyone know if it was ever released on DVD?

[Walloon]

@voguevixen

The one our school trotted out every rain day or “reward presentation” was I think called “Snowball Express.” It starred Don Knotts for sure, and possibly Tim Conway.

Neither was in Disney’s Snowball Express.

[StGermain]

Tuckerfan - The movie you’re referring to is My Side of the Mountain, based on a Jean Craighead George novel and co-starring Theodore Bikel. I wanted to run away and live in a tree after that movie. It was what started my life-long interest in falconry (along with the movie The Vikings, with Kirk Douglas.

No one’s mentioned The Parent Trap, starring Hayley Mills. It was remade a few years ago with Lindsey Lohan. A little-known movie that I saw (which may have been a Wonderful World of Disney serial) is The Horsemasters Annette Funicello and Tommy Kirk go to England to study horsemanship. The riding sequences were horribly filmed, like those old surfing movies! Still, I loved the concept and wanted to go there after I got back from living in the tree.

StG

[KRC]

First thing: Spoiler Alert!

There were several cougar movies, Charlie the Lonesome Cougar being only one. Charlie, after being raised by loggers, eventually found a lady cougar (never mind that cougars are not among the animals known for mating for life.)

*Gus * - -don’t even get me started. Yugoslavian peasant kid falls down a well and in the process of rescuing him his parents discover that the mule can kick. So they do what any self respecting Yugoslavian peasant would do under the circumstances, which is send the kid and the mule to the US, where the mule gets to play for a football team.

*Napoleon and Samantha * . Bizarre beyond belief. Two kids cross the Rocky mountains with a rooster and a lion, who fights off bears and cougars, to take up residence with the town outcast, who assigns someone to look after them, then goes to town and gets arrested because people think he’s hurt the children. When he sees a poster of a child molester on the wall and realizes that the man he hired to watch the kids is the molester he must escape from jail and outwit the townsfolk in order to save the children. (Disney marketed this stuff to 10 year olds?)

A Tiger Walks. Actually not that bad; a tiger kills its evil trainer and escapes and as adults plan to shoot it a young girl leads a campaign to save it.

*Sammy the Way Out Seal. * Two boys find an orphaned seal pup and decide to raise it while concealing it from their parents. Hijincks ensue. (Note: there was a similar movie about a pelican. And a Canada goose. And an elephant. And God knows what else.)

Don’t get me started on the one about the autistic boy adopted by the badger. All I’ll say is I’ve traced the source of the story and Ernest Thompson Seton swears it was true. (That story made my sister weep, by the way.)

*No Deposit, No Return. * Two kids neglected by their forgetful parents are “adopted” by robbers who are planning to pull a heist on their grandfather’s house. (Note: In Disney movies, robbers are never psycho crank addicts and will gladly adopt any small child they happen to encounter.) Hijinks ensue, especially when the kids get locked in their grandfather’s safe and their pet skunk saves them.

All these from the 60’s and 70’s and there are probably more that I have forgotten. I wish I knew what they put in the drinking water in that place back then.

[Zebra]

@sishoch

No has has mentioned The Black Hole, which I remember as the most inane scifi movie ever made. I saw it in a theater and lost interest early on. Now I can’t even recall what it was supposed to be about.

The Black Hole is what is wrong with Star Wars. Every studio had to put out a space epic and you got movies like this.

Oh and this was Disney’s first PG film.

[Trailer_Park_Casanova]

I miss, and can’t ever find Disneys true life adventures.

Several got academy awards, all were feature length:
The Vanishing Prarrie, The Living Desert, and Perrie (sic).
Disneys most forgotten award winning feature length films.

[brix11]

@Tangent

How about The World’s Greatest Athlete with Jan-Michael Vincent as a Tarzan-like character who is recruited to the track team of an American university? (With Tim Conway, too.)

I remember this one from elementary school in the mid-80’s. Every now and then we’d have an assembly to watch a movie. They were never anything current, but we enjoyed them just the same. I recall several Herbie the Love Bug and Benji movies being shown as well.

[poeticyde]

@look@hergo!

My most memorable Disney live action film was one where a brother and sister live in a creepy old house that’s haunted (of course). An old doll is involved, and a well, and the ghost is always singing “Frere Jaques” for some reason. They figure out the mystery behind the ghost-girl’s death (drowning in the well?) and there’s a happy ending. Scared the heck out of me when I was seven. Can’t remember the name of it, though. Any help?

Child of Glass , one of my favorites as well.

[Tuckerfan]

What was the Disney film with the kids who later went on (or maybe concurrently, or at least these guys resembled the others) to star in Sigmund the Sea Monster? They built all kinds of nifty gadgets and used them to foil a bank robbery. One of them that I remember was a remote controlled bulldozer with suction cups on the treads and a Polaroid camera mounted on it.

[CalMeacham]

I miss, and can’t ever find Disneys true life adventures.

Several got academy awards, all were feature length:
The Vanishing Prarrie, The Living Desert, and Perrie (sic).

Not sic, I’m afraid. I spelled it correctly in my early post above, Perri, without the e. See the IMDB entry:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050837/?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxzZz0xfGxtPTIwMHx0dD1vbnxwbj0wfHE9UGVycml8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft=49;fm=1
I wish I could remember this flick. It played in my home-town theater when it first came out, but I’ve never seen it on TV, or on video or DVD. It disappearedc into the woodwork (appropriate for a movie about squirrel). I don’t recall anything abut it winning an award. The IMDB doesn’t credit it with one.
I note that it was based on a work by Felix Salten, who wrote **Bambi[p/B]. Apparently a live-action “Bambi” makes a cameo appearance in the film. Weird.

[CalMeacham]

I typed too fast. It was, in fact, nominated for an Oscar for the music, but didn’tr win. (I remember the score being released s a record). It did win the “Golden ear Award” in Berin, which I have never heard of.

Perri - IMDb

[Purd_Werfect]

@Odinoneeye

Every Sunday night, ABC (I think) had The Wonderful World of Disney and would show one of these.

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was part of a series starring Kurt Russel which included The Strongest Man in the World and one where he turnd invisible called Now You See Him, Now You Don’t.

I guess the answer would be yes, I remember those.

Yep, it was ABC. i watched religiously as a young boy. The movies were fun enough, but it was always like a mini-holiday to me when the showed a feature length cartoon. My favorite character was the duck professor who seemed to be based on Irwin Corey.

And of course, one couldn’t be properly be prepared for The Wonderful World of Disney without first partaking in Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom hosted by Marlin Perkins.

I miss innocence sometimes.

[Tuckerfan]

@Purd Werfect

And of course, one couldn’t be properly be prepared for The Wonderful World of Disney without first partaking in Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom hosted by Marlin Perkins.

[Marlin Perkins] I’ll stay safely in the helicopter while Jim wrestles the alligator to the ground. [/MP]

[JThunder]

@Spoons

Somebody mentioned Merlin Jones–that character must have been in more than one film, because while I recall The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, I also seem to recall the name from The Monkey’s Uncle.

Yes indeed. The character and his supporting cast appeared in both films.

[Cerri]

One of my all-time favorite movies is Disney’s [url=http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800095854&cf=info&intl=us]Miracle of the White Stallions, starring Robert Taylor and Lilli Palmer, which is about how the Spanish Riding School and it’s famous Lipzzaner horses were saved in WWII after it had fallen under control of the Germans during the war.

Based on a true story, the famed Lipizzaner Stallions from Vienna are threatened by the ravages of World War II. The horses’ instructors and riding staff risk their lives to illegally transport them to the safety of a chateau outside the city until American troops return the horses to their rightful location.

A very emotional movie, and it has several performances of the stallions themselves in the movie, which are breathtaking. The grace of the performing horses brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it.

[Cerri]

Bah, botched the coding in that link. url=http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800095854&cf=info&intl=us

[Walloon]

Disneyland, ABC, 1954-1958
Walt Disney Presents, ABC, 1958-1961
Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, NBC, 1961-1969
The Wonderful World of Disney, NBC, 1969-1979
Disney’s Wonderful World, NBC, 1979-1981
Walt Disney, CBS, 1981-1983
The Disney Sunday Movie, ABC, 1986-1988
The Magical World of Disney, NBC, 1988-1990

[a35362]

I guess these weren’t Disney, but does anyone else remember Digby: The Biggest Dog in the World (1973), about an Old English Sheepdog that accidentally swallows some secret growth formula (developed to make food bigger to combat world hunger - I remember the scene where a group of men carry in a gigantic cucumber). At one point the kid who owns the dog winds up in his mouth and he yells, “Digby! Don’t swallow!” Of course the inside of the dog’s mouth is like a big dry cave with teeth, and the kid’s voice echoes.

Or how about Hawmps!, about the cavalry having to learn to ride camels because there aren’t enough horses? All I remember is a scene where someone gets shot, but - he survives because he’s got a Bible or some other book in his chest pocket, and there’s the ball in the middle of the pages! Probably Don Knotts and Slim Pickens were involved.

[haardvark]

Being utterly enamored with the Witch Mountain movies as a young child, it was…confusing and troubling, to say the least, to see Tuff Turf as an adolescent in the unforgiving throes of puberty.

Kim Richards. Yow.

Lots of good memories in this thread!