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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 327606" data-attributes="member: 23">I caught up with this one last night...Herbie Rides Again (1974) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F18%2F43%2F7a%2F18437aff187ac6a7cb9911a9713cdf16.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 718px" />Well, as [USER=33]@Angela Channing[/USER] said, there's very little to connect this story to the previous one. It's dropped into dialogue that Herbie being a former famous racing car whose owner went to Europe to race big cars, and Herbie even has some "flashbacks" featuring second unit footage of Herbie racing with no identifiable occupants. The main concession to link this with The Love Bug is that Helen Hayes's character is said to be the aunt of Tennessee Steinmetz from the first film. They even share a surname.With all-new characters, I was thinking this might be another "origin" type film where characters take a while to become aware of Herbie's autonomy, but that wasn't really the case. Mrs Steinmetz has had the full handover, of course. Nicole is in the know as well and just as open-minded as Mrs Steinmetz. Willoughby doesn't know at first but actually comes round to Mrs Steinmetz's way of thinking pretty thinking. There's a plot to get on with, don't you know?And it's a good plot. What I liked about this - and what makes it more easy to digest than the first film - is that it's fun, more relatable and less specific than the first. The idea of a big evil developer wanting to remove the final householder from their home on land they are waiting to transform into an ugly skyscraper is kind of a classic. Yes, it's been done many times (indeed, Disney/Pixar would successfully recycle this premise as the basis for Up! three and a half decades later), but this is because it works so well.Best of all (for me at least) is that this plot moves Herbie away from the Wacky Races thing (which was fun, but it's been done and doesn't need a retread) and into more prosaic situations. Well, almost. If the film has a failing it's that sometimes it feels as though it's trying a little too hard. In The Love Bug, Herbie was the only magical element. This time round, Mrs Steinmetz also has an autonomous orchestrion and an autonomous cable car, which makes Herbie himself feel a bit less special.With this in mind, I really should have disliked the final act which saw Herbie surrounded by numerous autonomous Beetles he'd rallied (it certainly flies in the face of the first film's philosophy that "A million come off the production line perfectly ordinary, but one is special" philosophy), but the fact is that I so enjoyed the sight of so many vintage Beetles of various colours all together that I loved it. Incidentally, I wonder if all the Beetles were supplied by VW themselves this time round, since they were clearly more on board with the Herbie Rides Again than the original*. The sequel saw Herbie sporting his VW badges, and the brand was even mentioned in the classic line "Why would a shark be following a Volkswagen?"The scene in question saw Herbie - apparently waterproof - turning briefly into a submarine like Bond's DB5 and saw one of the sillier moments with the surfer having a conversation with the occupants before falling off his board. But the film that actually jumped the shark for me saw Herbie riding up the cables that suspend the Golden Gate Bridge. <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cinema52.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F05%2FHerbieRidesBridge-1024x583.png&f=1&nofb=1" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />For most of the silliness  I could remind myself that this is a fantasy film for kids, but the combination of outrageous situation and hokey effects were too much for me. And the situation was made worse when Herbie then reversed back down the cables at the men pursuing them up the struts as if they were out for an afternoon ramble.However, this is one small grumble in a film that was, as I said, very easy to digest.Casting was good. Stefanie Powers was very charismatic and on a shallow note she looked stunning in that red air hostess uniform. She made a great - and hilarious -first impression by punching out her leading man as she says hello (he works for the enemy). She then goes on to hit him in the face with a boiled lobster, knocking him into the ocean, on learning he's the enemy's nephew. She's very engaging. Even more so - dare I say - than Michele Lee was in The Love Bug.As an antagonist, I really wasn't sure about Keenan Wynn at first, but once he got warmed up with his bellowing (and he did a lot of bellowing) he was great. He doesn't feel as "cinematic" to me as David Tomlinson (if that makes any sense), but he's great fun and certainly very sporting when it comes to his character's comeuppance.Ken Berry isn't a familiar name to me, though his filmography suggests I've seen him in small roles in TV series. He, too, was great here. He makes a really nice romantic lead, having an everyman quality that makes him feel accessible and relatable as well as extremely likeable.Helen Hayes brings a touch of class to things. She's wonderful, and her theatrical background comes across strongly with the way she commands the screen, often by doing very little. The little choices she makes and the looks she gives make her absolutely magnetic. There's a terrific moment where she's ticking off a warehouse guard for trying to nab her (as she breaks in). The dialogue is fairly ordinary, but there's a kind of darkness about her in that moment that really makes me get a sense of her character's genuine anger and outrage that reminded me as a viewer that underneath the comic scenario was the injustice that her personal possessions have been stolen.One unsung returnee was George Bruns who did another terrific score. As mentioned in The Love Bug, my favourite of his is Sleeping Beauty, so you can imagine how my ears pricked up when he used a sting very reminiscent of Maleficent's Anger from that film. It's first heard when the model of Hawk Plaza is lifted up to reveal a tiny model of Mrs Steinmetz's firehouse underneath, and it can be heard again once or twice later in the film. It's great to have him back and was another thing that helped tie this to the original. All in all - and despite its cartoony flaws - I think I enjoyed this at least as much as The Love Bug. Perhaps a little more!*After writing this, I took a peek around and found <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie#Herbie_Rides_Again_(1974)" target="_blank">this</a>:That sounds like my idea of heaven. I quite like cars in general, and combining that with films would be a treat. Visiting various car museums over the years I've seen a number of famous ones included in various exhibitions (various Bond vehicles, Mr Bean's Mini, the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter, etc)  but Herbie is still on my bucket list.</blockquote>

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