Herbie Goes Bananas (dir. Vincent McEveety, 1980)
I’ll say this for the Herbie movies: They tend to have excellent casts. This week’s coverage of The Series Project will see three films of wildly differing qualities, all boasting a long string of excellent actors and comedians in bit parts. The notable actors and comedians are not necessarily great or funny, but they were all a pleasure to see. Herbie Goes Bananas has Harvey Korman as a maritime-obsessed cruise ship captain, Cloris Leachman as a smitten old aunt, John Vernon as the bad guy, and Charles Martin Smith – director of Air Bud – as the funny sidekick. I liked seeing all of these people, even though I was more bored and annoyed by the movies as a whole than I was delighted or entertained. Sadly, the main character of the film isn’t a notable character actor, but an insufferably precocious 11-year-old Mexican pickpocket named Paco (Joaquin Garay III) who is supposed to be precious and charming, but who comes across as grating and whiny. Paco is a sniveling little twerp with a heart of gold who runs around in shorts and a ballcap, looking very much like those be-minishorted Japanese boys from 1960s kaiju films. I don’t fault Garay for his performance; I’m sure he’s fine. I fault the screenwriters for giving into this particular stereotype. I can’t rightly think of any others off the top of my head, but I seem to recall seeing many children’s films back in the day (most of them made by Disney) wherein a precocious young pickpocket is depicted as golden and heroic despite their criminal behavior. You know the type. Wide-eyed, dark-haired, dirty-faced Oliver Twist-like moppets who treat adults with disrespect, and comedically hoard wallets or stolen bread with the fervor of a Pokémon collector. Paco is just the most recent in a long line of these moppets.
Herbie Goes Bananas is a travelogue of Latin America, and much of the film is devoted to driving through exotic locales and engaging in the local activities; Herbie does indeed find himself in a bullfighting ring at some point. But since this is a Disney film, the local color is hardly authentic, opting for that colorful, plastic, ultra-friendly version of the world seen in Disneyland’s ripe Lovecraftian visit to the netherrealms known as “It’s a Small World.” Herbie Goes Bananas isn’t nearly as obnoxious as “It’s a Small World,” of course. Nothing is and nothing ever will be. But that it made me think of “It’s a Small World” is no good thing.
The story is oddly complicated. There is a pair of white guys (Smith and the handsome Stephan W. Burns) in Mexico, looking for a race car they intend to enter in a significant race. The race car is, of course, Herbie, who has somehow drifted south of the border in his many misadventures. I’ve heard a lot of traded-in cars at car lots are taken to other countries to be used as taxis. Maybe that’s what happened to Herbie. Anyway, our white heroes buy Herbie just as heir wallets are stolen by Paco. Paco also steals the wallets of a bunch of evil counterfeiting guys (led by John Vernon), also in Mexico for vague criminal reasons. When Paco has both of these people’s wallets, he fecklessly removed incriminating microfilm from one wallet, and places it in another. For no reason other than plot contrivance. Hence, the bad guys will be pursuing our good guys – and Herbie – across several countries to get it back. Also, the bad guys are in search of a lost Mayan city said to contain mountains of gold. Also the good guys are broke and need a sponsor in addition to a car.
How does Herbie play into all of this? For some reason, Herbie takes a shine to Paco, and smuggles Paco in his trunk aboard an ocean freighter. Paco is a lovable stowaway, and begins calling Herbie “Ocho,” because of the “53” on his side. Why he doesn’t call Herbie “Cincuenta y Tres” is beyond me. I guess “Ocho” is punchier. Herbie, by the way, is far more animated in this film than he was previously. He can still drive himself, open his own doors, and do wheelies, but now he also has swiveling headlights to make him look like he’s looking around, an extending antenna that he can use as a finger, and can kind of honk in different tones, making for a rudimentary speech. I still say that Herbie is only about as smart as an intelligent dog or horse, but if he’s almost speaking, it makes me suspect he’s smarter. Call me a sucker, but I like his little honk voice. I think it’s cute.
Herbie eventually runs afoul of the cruise ship’s captain (Korman, in usual crazy mode) and is buried at sea. Seriously, Herbie is forced to walk the plank. Luckily, as was established in Herbie Rides Again, Beetles can not only float, but swim for great distances. Meanwhile, our gringo heroes find financial backing in the form of a nutty and fun lady named Louise (Leachman). Also Pete, our handsome leader, romances Louise’s young niece Melissa, a fetish nerd played by Elyssa Davalos. Yes, there will be a scene wherein Melissa is stripped of her glasses and hair ties to prove how pretty she is. These days, I think glasses have lost their stigma, and are considered sexual objects again. Guys now always make passes at girls who wear glasses. There is a lot of dramatic heat generated from the fact that these two are being dishonest in charming this older lady for financial backing, and charming her young niece concurrently, but I can’t see what these guys are doing wrong. They seek a backer and find one. There is a romance. Easy peasy, right? No. Evidently, there will have to be a misunderstanding around this.
Paco and Herbie are reunited on the shore (Herbie swam back), although Herbie is now covered with rust. Paco paints him up like a taxi, intending to use him as such. Herbie is now a lot less like a beloved dog, and more like the mule from Robert Bresson’s Au Hazard Balthazar; willing to withstand and absorb human abuse as a silent martyr. There is then a song about friendship on the soundtrack, and it actually features the line “And I’ll bet you a banana that mañana, you’ll have a new friend! F-R-E-N-D! Friend!” My gorge rises at it.
What else? Aside from the uncomfortable Latin stereotypes, there’s too much, so I’ll skip to the end. Herbie is eventually back in the hands of all our good guys, and they confront the bad guys who are attempting to steal some unclaimed Mayan gold. Herbie is coated with bananas as a disguise (!), and flings bananas at the bad guys to stop them. This brief and goofy climax was evidently enough to name the film after.
All the Herbie movies are rated G, but this one seems to skew even younger than the others, opting for obnoxious little kids and banana peel humor rather than anything that has to do with cars. The film was not a hit, and signaled the end of the Disney live-action studio films, which had stayed open for the benefit of Herbie movies exclusively. Herbie Goes Bananas is the low point of the series which can only be said to benefit from the underutilized cast, and a few notable practical stunts.
Oh yes. One side note…
