Disney Plus-Or-Minus: The Strongest Man In The World

Kurt Russell was 15 years old when he made his first Disney movie, the Fred MacMurray Boy Scouts tribute Follow Me, Boys! Since then, he’d appeared in eight more theatrical features, a handful of TV productions (a few of which received theatrical releases overseas) and become one of the studio’s biggest stars. This was an impressive achievement since Disney had failed time and again to transition their child stars through adolescence and into young adulthood. We’ve already seen the likes of Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran come and go. Kurt Russell had been the biggest name to emerge from Disney since Hayley Mills. And if none of his movies were blockbusters along the lines of Pollyanna or The Parent Trap, they were inexpensive enough to consistently turn a handsome profit.

By the time The Strongest Man In The World came out on February 6, 1975, Russell was about to turn 24 and ready for a change. Returning to Medfield College to play Dexter Riley one last time was probably not high on his list of priorities. Perhaps this is why Dexter Riley disappears for long stretches of the final Dexter Riley movie. Instead, the spotlight is turned on Dexter’s buddy, Schuyler (Michael McGreevey), and the eternally put-upon Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn).

Vincent McEveety, fresh off his Hawaiian vacation filming The Castaway Cowboy, takes over directing duties from original Dexter Riley helmer Robert Butler. Butler had temporarily stepped away from the studio to focus on television and TV-movies like The Blue Knight and Strange New World but he’ll be back in this column. Like the other movies in this series, Vincent’s brother Joseph L. McEveety wrote the script, cowriting this time with Herman Groves. Groves didn’t write many movies but he wrote a whole lot of television, including The Secret Of Boyne Castle, a three-part Disney serial (released theatrically overseas as Guns In The Heather) starring Kurt Russell.

Unless this is your first visit to Medfield, it will not surprise you to learn that the film starts with the college in dire financial straits. At this point, this is such a normal state of affairs that Dean Higgins isn’t even worried when he gets a visit from the Board of Regents’ Mr. Dietz (Harold Gould). But the Board is done messing around and has sent Dietz to fire the dean.

Higgins immediately deflects blame to the science department and Professor Quigley (William Schallert, returning from The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes after a one-film sabbatical) whose constant need for new test tubes and Bunsen burners has stretched the budget to the breaking point. He begs for one last chance and Dietz reluctantly gives him thirty days to turn things around.

Immediately after throwing Quigley under the bus, Higgins goes to see what he and the boys in the lab are cooking up these days. After all, they’ve historically been very good at accidentally stumbling upon short-term solutions. But Higgins begins to despair when he sees the lab pouring most of its resources toward trying to fatten up a scrawny (and rented) cow. He storms out, slamming the door and triggering one of Medfield’s traditional chain reactions, spilling Dexter’s experimental formula for whatever into Schuyler’s vitamin-enhanced cereal.

The next morning, Schuyler gets an angry call from the farmer complaining that the cow won’t stop producing milk (she’s at 80 gallons and counting). Meanwhile, Dexter helps himself to a bowlful of Schuyler’s explosive cereal. Given that it reacts like Rice Krispies on cocaine, Dexter only has a few bites and gives the rest to the dog. It turns the little dog into an aggressive speed demon and causes Dexter to accidentally bend a lamp post when he leans against it. Schuyler and Dexter have done it again and, as usual, they don’t fully understand what it is they’ve done.

Dexter and the gang bring the discovery to Dean Higgins, who just so happens to be in the middle of reprimanding a fat kid for smuggling cake and other treats into class. After Dexter demonstrates by lifting both the kid and his chair with just one hand, Higgins has a brilliant idea. And because it’s a Disney gimmick comedy, it’s absolutely not to analyze the formula and attempt to replicate it in any way.

No, instead of sparing even a moment’s thought for the formula, Higgins focuses on the cereal it coincidentally fell into. He makes an appointment with the owner of Crumply Crunch cereal, Aunt Harriet Crumply (Eve Arden and I’m genuinely shocked to learn this is the only Disney movie she ever appeared in). Higgins enjoys a bowl of Crumply Crunch and wows Aunt Harriet and her board with feats of athleticism (and destruction when he karate chops the table in half). He then pitches a publicity stunt that somehow manages to be both elaborate and kind of unexciting at the same time. He wants Crumply Crunch and Medfield to challenge their respective rivals, Krinkle Krunch and State College, at the upcoming state weightlifting championship. Because it’s a Disney Law that every one of these movies must end with a climactic competition between Medfield and State.

However, Mr. Kirwood Krinkle (Phil Silvers from The Boatniks) suspects something’s up. State has the best weightlifting team in the country. Of course they do. All their teams are the best in the country. Medfield must be up to something. So Krinkle contacts his inside man, Aunt Harriet’s nephew Harry (Dick Van Patten, last seen in Superdad), who spills the beans on Medfield’s secret formula. And guess who Harry contacts about swiping the formula?

Yep, it’s our old buddies A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero) and his stooge, Cookie (Richard Bakalayan), newly released from prison. Arno persuades the reluctant Cookie to match wits with Dexter Riley one more time. Their first attempt to break into the lab is a disaster thanks to Arno’s complete inability to follow Cookie’s orders. So instead, they kidnap Schuyler and take him to an old acquaintance of Arno’s, Ah Fong (played by Benson Fong from The Love Bug).

Incidentally, the name “Ah Fong” is a bit of an inside joke for L.A. residents. In addition to being an actor, Benson Fong owned a popular mini-chain of Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles called Ah Fong’s. I hope someone will correct me if I’m wrong but the restaurant in the movie does not appear to be an Ah Fong’s location, which is a missed opportunity if you ask me. All the Ah Fong’s restaurants are gone now. Too bad, the food was supposed to be great.

Anyway, our Ah Fong proceeds to hypnotize Schuyler using acupuncture and gets him to reveal the formula for his vitamin compound. Afterward, he commands him to go straight home to his dog, availing himself of the first mode of transportation he sees. Not a great turn of phrase, under the circumstances. The Chief of Police (a too brief appearance by the great character actor James Gregory) is being honored at the restaurant, so the first vehicle Schuyler sees is a police car. Schuyler makes it home, pursued by seemingly half the cops in the metro area.

Back at Krinkle Krunch headquarters, Mr. Krinkle samples the new formula, only to break his hand attempting a karate chop. They realize the stuff doesn’t work but soon figure out that Medfield doesn’t know the secret of the super-strength formula any more than they do. As long as State performs like they usually do, Medfield will be in for a humiliating defeat.

The big day finally arrives and the supremely confident Dean Higgins butts heads with the grinning Mr. Krinkle. But after Medfield’s first competitor ends up with a pair of cartoonishly stretched out arms after failing to budge the barbell, Dexter realizes it was his formula and not Schuyler’s that gave everyone super-strength. He heads back to the lab in the Dean’s antique car, a museum piece with a top speed of around 10 mph.

But Arno and Harry have planned for this and have goons waiting for him at the lab. Dexter defeats them easily after drinking some of his formula, then races back to the competition by pouring some into the gas tank of Higgins’ car. He makes it just in the nick of time, albeit at the expense of Higgins’ beloved vehicle. Medfield is triumphant once again and Dean Higgins is allowed to keep his job and continue running the college into the ground.

By now we should all know the drill with Disney’s gimmick comedies and the Dexter Riley saga in particular. As such, The Strongest Man In The World isn’t bad for its type. The animated titles by Art Stevens and Guy Deel are cute and a nice surprise after the boring opening credits of Now You See Him, Now You Don’t. The movie also benefits from casting comedic powerhouses like Eve Arden and Phil Silvers. It was movies like this that helped introduce me and other members of my generation to the likes of Sgt. Bilko, which is a great gift to give a young person.

There are also some surprising names appearing as Dexter’s fellow students. Future Oscar-nominated composer John Debney, whose father Lou worked behind the scenes at Disney for years, is part of the gang. So is Larry Franco, who was either married to or about to marry Kurt Russell’s sister, Jill, and went on to produce movies like Escape From New York and The Thing. David R. Ellis started working as a stuntman shortly after appearing in The Strongest Man In The World. In 1996, he returned to Disney to direct Homeward Bound II: Lost In San Francisco and would later direct two Final Destination movies and Snakes On A Plane. Who knew they were all distinguished Medfield alumni?

Despite the best efforts of the cast, The Strongest Man In The World has some problems that prevent it from being one of the better Dexter Riley movies. The most significant of these is a serious lack of Dexter Riley. Dexter disappears entirely from the middle third of the movie as we focus on Higgins, Arno, Cookie and Schuyler. Michael McGreevy is a fun actor but Schuyler was made to be a sidekick. Putting him front and center just underscores how important Kurt Russell’s natural magnetism has been to these films.

Another issue, and this is going to sound strange in the context of a Disney gimmick comedy, is that the stakes just aren’t as high this time around. Every other time we’ve gone to Medfield, the very existence of the college hinges on the outcome. Here, we’re expected to care about Dean Higgins’ job security. Nothing against Joe Flynn, who has been a terrific foil in a number of movies, but Higgins will be fine. And honestly, another line of work might not be the worst thing for him at this point. He has consistently held the students and the faculty in contempt, so maybe academia isn’t for him.

The Strongest Man In The World ended up being Joe Flynn’s last film (although we’ll be hearing from him once more, thanks to the protracted production of animation). In July of 1974, Flynn evidently suffered a heart attack while swimming in his pool at home and drowned. He was just 49 years old. His final, posthumously released appearance as Dean Higgins served as a nice showcase for this consistently funny actor.

This is also the last we’ll see of Cesar Romero (Richard Bakalyan, on the other hand, will be back). A.J. Arno goes out with a bit of a whimper, taking orders from Dick Van Patten instead of ruling his own criminal empire. This leaves the movie without a strong villain. Van Patten’s just a weasel and Phil Silvers is only interested in beating his competition. It’s tough to get worked up about corporate espionage when you don’t really care about either company.

The Strongest Man In The World got good but not great reviews and did good but not great box office. With Kurt Russell moving on, it was time to let Dexter Riley go. So we never got a chance to see what other superpowers he might have accidentally ended up with. But since the series was essentially ripping off the Fantastic Four, we can certainly guess. In The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, he became a brainiac like Reed Richards. In Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, he took on Sue’s invisibility. Here, he became strong like Ben Grimm. Disney probably wouldn’t allow him to burst into flame like Johnny Storm but a fourth movie almost certainly would have given him the power of flight.

The FF comparison brings home the biggest missed opportunity of this series. Dexter gets these abilities temporarily and never has to deal with any side effects. Some of Kurt Russell’s funniest moments in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes come as he’s reverting back to normal and gradually wears down. Disney should have put more limitations on Dexter’s various powers to give Russell more opportunities to show off his comedy chops. Instead, the studio was content to keep him as handsome, charming and likable as possible. That carried him pretty far but it didn’t get Kurt Russell where he wanted to be.

Audiences didn’t have to wait long to see what else Kurt Russell could do. Later in 1975, he appeared as University of Texas sniper Charles Whitman in the TV-movie The Deadly Tower. It was a big departure from his Disney roles and audiences weren’t quite ready for it. But a few years later, he teamed up with John Carpenter for the first time on the TV-movie Elvis. His performance as Presley netted him an Emmy nomination and a collaborative director who would bring out his best in movies like Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China.

Kurt Russell really helped keep Disney afloat during the creatively lean years of the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the studio didn’t appreciate what they had at the time, sticking him into movies like Superdad and Charley And The Angel that nobody could have helped save. The Dexter Riley movies aren’t high art but at their best, they’re good, silly fun that gave Russell an opportunity to hone his screen persona.

I’ve never heard Kurt Russell speak ill of his time at Disney even though he’s fully aware that the movies are what they are. He’s always seemed grateful for the decade he spent at Disney, particularly his relationship with Walt. Even though his contract was up and he was moving on to other things, Kurt Russell returned to the studio just a few years later. We’ll hear him in this column again.

VERDICT: I’m feeling generous and nostalgic today so let’s call it a Disney Plus for the whole Dexter Riley trilogy.

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