The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again ** (1979, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Tim Matheson) – Classic Movie Review 8469

Director Vincent McEveety’s 1979 The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again stars Don Knotts and Tim Conway, who reprise their roles as the daffy, knockabout inept outlaw villains Theodore Ogelvie and Amos Tucker from the The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), in this Walt Disney children’s live action comedy Western adventure sequel.

The slapstick is even broader than before and the film shows less sense of flair or fun this time. But Knotts and Tim Conway remain amusing, genial company in their bumbling roles, and Tim Matheson, Kenneth Mars as Marshal Woolly Bill Hitchcock, Elyssa Davalos, Jack Elam, Robert Pine, Harry Morgan, Ruth Buzzi and Audrey Totter are all very welcome co-stars too. It is all very innocent, idiotic, old-fashioned Disney family-oriented entertainment from another, simpler era.

Don Tait‘s screenplay in based on Jack M Bickham’s book. Frank Phillips shoots in lovely Technicolor.

Tim Conway died on 14 May 2019.

Also in the good old cast are Richard X Slattery, John Crawford, Cliff Osmond, Ted Gehring, Morgan Paull, Robert Totten and George Chandler (in his final film).

The much loved funny man Tim Conway died on 14 May 2019, aged 85. He won the 1976 Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor – Television for The Carol Burnett Show. He also appeared in Disney’s The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973), The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), Gus (1976), and The Shaggy DA.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8469

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