Disney Plus-Or-Minus: Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo

The last time we saw Herbie the Love Bug, he was living in San Francisco with the elderly aunt of mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz and going up against the dastardly Alonzo P. Hawk while race car driver Jim Douglas was off competing in Europe. It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time and it makes even less in the third chapter of the Love Bug Saga, Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo. Herbie Rides Again had been a substantial hit but it hadn’t had much to do with the original The Love Bug. Now with Dean Jones willing to return as Jim Douglas, it seems fair to say that Disney decided to call a mulligan on the second film and proceed as if it had never happened.

Jones was the only player to return from any of the previous Love Bugs (apart from Herbie himself, of course). Jones had left Disney for about five years after Snowball Express, during which time he became a born-again Christian. I’m not sure what compelled him to return for a two-picture deal that included this and The Shaggy D.A., although I’m guessing it starts with “M” and rhymes with hunny.

This would be the last of the ten features Dean Jones made at Disney. He’s been a fixture of this column for so long, ever since That Darn Cat!, that it’s almost shocking to think we won’t be seeing his work again. But we’re not done with Herbie yet, so we’ll talk about Dean Jones at least once more.

Robert Stevenson, director of the first two films as well as some of Disney’s best live-action features, retired after the release of The Shaggy D.A. And so, directing duties fell to Vincent McEveety, the director of Superdad and Gus. It was a little bit of a step down from Oscar nominee Stevenson to journeyman McEveety but it’s not as though the studio had another Robert Stevenson waiting in the wings. McEveety had slowly been showing signs of improvement with comedies, so he was as good a fit as anyone.

The other key member of the original Love Bug team, writer/producer Bill Walsh, had died in early 1975. New producer Ron Miller gave Herbie’s keys to the screenwriting team of Arthur Alsberg and Don Nelson. Alsberg and Nelson had written No Deposit, No Return and Gus for Disney, so they certainly knew what was expected of them on this assignment.

With Alsberg and Nelson involved, it was all but inevitable that they’d find a place for Don Knotts. Disney’s hottest new star rides shotgun as Jim’s latest mechanic, Wheely Applegate. Wheely somehow manages to do even less actual repair work than Buddy Hackett’s Tennessee Steinmetz did in the first film. His biggest job seems to be talking to the cars and manipulating them into doing what he wants.

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time breaking down the plot of Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo (you’re welcome) because it’s pretty straightforward. Jim, Wheely and Herbie arrive in Europe to stage a comeback in the Trans-France Race from Paris to Monte Carlo. Jim claims it’s been twelve years since he and Herbie last raced, which is interesting since it had been less than ten since the first movie came out. Regardless, it’s been a long time and all of the rugged, mustachioed European drivers make fun of the little Volkswagen.

Meanwhile at the museum next door, the legendary Étoile de Joie, the world’s largest diamond, is about to go on display (that makes two movies in a row, after The Rescuers, that revolve around an obscenely large diamond). The gem is, of course, protected by all the latest high-tech security precautions. But an inside man codenamed Double X has provided the disarming codes to a pair of bumbling (is there any other kind?) jewel thieves, Max (Bernard Fox, last heard from as The Chairman in The Rescuers) and Quincey (Roy Kinnear from One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing).

The crooks almost get away with it but Max can’t read Double X’s handwriting and he trips the final alarm. They dive out the window and try to blend in with the crowd gathered for the race check-in. When the police seal the area and announce that everyone will be searched, Max slips the diamond into Herbie’s gas tank. And if you’re thinking, “Hey, I didn’t think Volkswagen Beetles had external gas caps. In fact, I distinctly remember Herbie’s gas cap was in the front,” well…shut up. It moved.

A little later at the first qualifying race, Herbie catches a glimpse of a foxy 1977 Lancia. It’s love at first sight and Herbie’s efforts to meet the car (who turns out to be named Giselle) almost get him and Jim kicked out of the race. Giselle’s driver, Diane Darcy (TV star Julie Sommars in her only Disney appearance), is also more than a little steamed about it. As a woman race car driver, Diane has something to prove. She holds Jim responsible for Herbie’s behavior, interpreting it as dirty tricks employed by a male chauvinist with an inferiority complex.

And so it goes in Monte Carlo. Max and Quincey follow the course and periodically attempt to get the diamond back. Double X (spoiler alert for a 45+ year old Herbie movie, I guess) turns out to the detective in charge of the case, Inspector Bouchet (Jacques Marin from The Island At The Top Of The World). Complicating things for the crooked cop and his flunkies is Bouchet’s self-appointed protégé, the overeager Detective Fontenoy (Xavier Saint-Macary, who sort of resembles Borat if he’d been kicked in the head by a mule as a small child). Herbie courts Giselle, who turns out to be just as sentient as Herbie, and the two fall in love. Jim and Diane also eventually fall in love, although they have considerably less chemistry than their cars. Oh, and there’s a car race in there somewhere. Guess who wins?

With Herbie Rides Again, Robert Stevenson and Bill Walsh leaned in hard to the silly side of The Love Bug and came up with a movie so ridiculous that it borders on the surreal. McEveety and his team try to steer the franchise back into its original lane but they’re a little too cautious. I’m glad they remembered Herbie is a race car and built the movie around a thinly veiled version of one of the world’s most famous auto races. But the race itself is pretty tame compared to The Love Bug and especially compared to Herbie Rides Again. Apart from one gravity-defying moment in a tunnel, most of Herbie’s antics this time out obey the basic laws of physics. This car can drive straight up the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. Why not let him cut loose?

With the race treated like an afterthought, all we’re left with is the theft of the diamond (and we’ve seen plenty of those already) and the romance between the two cars (the human romance element is even less essential than the race, so that’s a nonstarter). The love story is cute enough and Disney magic continues to convey an impressive amount of emotion through spurting oil, rapidly opening and closing car doors and the coquettish lowering of headlights. But you never get the sense that this relationship will go anywhere. We’ve seen how little continuity matters to the folks making these movies. Don’t get too attached to Giselle.

A more ambitious sequel might have turned the series into a precursor to Pixar’s Cars. Herbie summoned a small army of sentient VWs in Herbie Rides Again and Giselle is clearly self-aware. Why stop there? It’s still unclear whether all the cars are in fact alive or if it’s Herbie’s presence that turns them into something more. But for better or worse, nobody seems interested in exploring these questions of automotive identity. Not when you can just toss a couple of jewel thieves into the mix and call it a day.

Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo was released June 24, 1977, to more fanfare than you might expect. Herbie even had his tire treads immortalized in cement outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Critics were predictably grumpy about having to sit through another Herbie picture but audiences still loved the little guy. It went on to become Disney’s highest-grossing live-action movie of 1977.

Granted, Disney’s biggest hits of the year sort of paled in comparison to Star Wars, the number one movie at the box office. But then, so did just about every other studio’s. Between Freaky Friday, Herbie and The Rescuers, Disney was having a pretty decent year financially. But creatively, the studio was beginning to spin its wheels. Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo was just one of the most literal examples.

VERDICT: It isn’t terrible and I understand Herbie has some diehard fans but this leans more Disney Minus than Plus.

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