Watch The Apple Dumpling Gang For Free

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A Masterpiece!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

i've always enjoyed 'Apple Dumpling Gang' while growing up, but as a adult i've come to respect it as entertainment and really love it as Disney film. the kind that only Disney ever turned out. it has such a identifiable look and feel to it that was always uniquely Disney. Disney films always followed a kind of formula that made them uniform in relation to each other, but set them apart from the rest of Hollywood and filmmaking in general.'Apple Dumpling Gang' has always been one of my top favorite Disney live action films because it epitomizes the Disney formula so completely while managing to stand on a certain individualism. it delivers completely on the Disney formula as well as offering so much more as a film. first off, in keeping with Disney tradition, it is extremely cute and huggable as well as elicitly wholesome family fare. the film also boast some good historic authenticity as well as a amusing story. it's all enhanced with superior photography and some sturdy direction from Disney stock director Norman Tokar.it also has some of the finest physical comedy ever put on to film. thanks of course to the genius of Don Knotts and Tim Conway's comic timing. their comedy duo carries out a weird feeling of predictability to their antics that is funny in a i-knew-that-would-happen way. i've never quite seen humour this funny where half the gag is the predictability of the results of their ill fated schemes. the kids also get into some pretty funny shenanigans as well.there are also some great bit parts by veteran western actor Slim Pickens, as well as TV favorites Frank Morgan, John McGiver and David Wayne. Pickens especially is hilarious as the gang leader who Conway accidentally has shot the foot off of.this film might not be ground breaking in terms of cinema technique, but it is very memorable as a piece of entertainment. and it's got more cozy heart than most movies as well as providing a certain amount of excitement and suspense.all in all the movie provides great family entertainment as well as great entertainment in general. it also provides very polished filmmaking that is contemporary even today. family films may get bigger than this with more explosions and CGI FX, but they really can't improve upon something like this. it is what it is and it's, it's own unique movie experience. unfortunately Disney doesn't make 'em like this anymore and neither does anybody else. fortunately, however, the Disney legacy has left us enough treasures like this gold nugget to indulge for years.

Don Knotts and Tim Conway, two very big stars in their own right, teamed to do some very successful films mostly for the Disney Studio. Their comedy style was a lot like Laurel and Hardy, but in terms of individual stars teaming and being successful at both, the only comparison there is Crosby and Hope.The Apple Dumpling Gang follows the misadventures of these two lunkheads as they try their hand at the outlaw trade. They accidentally shot a really fierce outlaw in Slim Pickens and left him crippled in one leg and he's out for their hides. Paralleling that plot is that of gambler Bill Bixby who wins what he thinks is a consignment of freight in a poker game, but what he really gets is the delivery of three children. Being a roving bachelor Bixby naturally thinks the kids will cramp his style and they do for awhile. Willing to help is Calamity Jane like character Susan Clark who drives for the freight line that her father David Wayne owns.One thing I do so like about Disney films is the use of familiar Hollywood faces who were having trouble getting work. For example the brassy Iris Adrian, a little older and heftier, but still full of sass.But the film really belongs to Conway and Knotts. Conway is the Laurel like figure in the partnership, dumb and he knows it. But he has for a partner Knotts who like Oliver Hardy is full of grand schemes who when they blow up in his face will always blame is hapless partner. But in point of fact Knotts is just a bad planner.The Apple Dumpling Gang spawned a sequel in The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again where Knotts and Conway have even more hysterical misadventures. This one however and its successor are some of the best films Disney Studios made in the Seventies.

I'm usually appalled at how vintage Disney (of about 1940-80) ignored the basics of good storytelling, relying instead on cinematic gimmicks.Sometimes it worked, sometimes not, but when you just simply don't invest in good storytelling, you plant poison that somehow catches up with you. The primary reason that I remembered this fondly is that it was that rare project where lots of attention was spent on story structure. It is engineered for lowbrow effect of course, but that is beside the point.The two main story threads are:— a pair of hapless cowboy bandits, whose every move is comedic. It is simple Laurel and Hardy stuff with better facial expressions, and it is this that provides the entertainment value.— a story about the essential power of the nuclear family. It was still the 1950 notion, involving 3 children. They sacrifice wealth in exchange for parents, while Dickensian characters circle around. This provides — even now — the "nourishment" value.The two threads are interwoven in rather brilliant fashion with encounters between the two lost parties (children and adults) few and clear. They meet initially when the erstwhile crooks believe they are to be captured. They meet a second time when they form the Apple Dumpling Gang to steal the children's gold nugget. They meet only a third significant time at the end when the now mommy and daddy adopt both the children and the virtual children.There are many architectural correspondences that work with this and the internal cinematic references. For instance, we have a red "hook and ladder wagon" that we see three times after we are told that the town has one: when it is poses a threat to the little girl who is rescued by the hero; when its ladder is stolen for the bank robbery; and when that same little girl is kidnapped by the real robbers and a chase ensues.This is because Disney at this period had a story lab that was looking at what they considered narrative dynamics. We know much more today, but in that era, the threes came about because there was a deliberate weave of three genres. — The standard western where a Maverick-like character rides into town as a loner and wins someone's heart. Here it is the town redhead. He wears the standard gambler garb, and we track him at the important beginning where the terms of the story are established.— A comedy genre based on a combination of slapstick and Marx brothers quality dialog.— A family movie where what is now called "family values" are celebrated in a lighthearted fashion, but deeply acknowledged.Given this establishment of the three genres, the script was designed around the rule of threes. For instance, the gambler saving the girl from the fire engine is for the family genre; the chase in the fire wagon at the end is standard Hopalong Cassidy fare; and the bit in the middle where the ladder is stolen while the fireman sleeps is from the Marx tradition.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Typical Disney movie from the 70's. Same kind of predictable story, bad acting and poor everything else. Lots of ooohhhh and aaahhhh when we get to see the cute little children but you quickly go the yawning and the watch checking. To see Bill Bixby's character go around the town to find a family for the three kids that he accepted to look after for a while, you wish that he would have found somebody to take care of them. The story would have been finish and we would have saved about 75 minutes of our time. But even if he's better then a salesmen selling candles or vacuums from door to door, he's stuck with the kids anyhow. Too bad for us!From there, the story is so predictable that at the end, you'll ask yourself where you got the courage to sat through the entire movie.Of course, when criticizing a movie, you try to be as impartial as possible. But I don't think I would have like this movie even when it came out in 1975. Maybe if I would have been 5 years old at the time and even then.Don Knotts and Tim Conway's characters (Theodore & Amos) are not funny at all. In fact, Knotts and Conway gave two abysmal performances in this one. The scene with the ladder is not funny and way too long.Skip this one, by all mean.I gave it 59 out of 100. That's * out of a four stars rating system.