The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Am I Missing Something?

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

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.

and those moments didn't really include Don Knotts and Tim Conway. These two are good for what they are, humorous as supporting characters in a b-line of the story. But they, in my opinion, weren't funny enough to get as much of the story as they did, which left the whole thing feeling off balance. But then I'm not much for slapstick humor like them or Lucille Ball. I prefer the storyline of the stolen military supplies, Major Gaskill, Jim, Jeff and Milly. Theodore and Amos aren't without their purpose. Their bumbling that led to the destruction of an entire fort was amusing if a little long. The sheriff was entirely annoying to me. He served a purpose but was too involved in the story as well, I think. Still, all that said, I liked it enough to buy it on DVD.

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.

I have never laughed so hard at a movie in my life. I'm very disappointed in the rating this comedy has gotten... this film was one of those rare sequels that surpasses the original. A definite must-see for all Tim Conway fans ("Where is your horn, little boy blue.")Granted, there are some smarmy moments... but Tim and Don shine in this comedy for the whole family!