Evil San Francisco magnate developer Alonzo Hawk
(Keenan Wynn) is focused on building a skyscraper office building in downtown
San Francisco but is frustrated because a sweet old widow, Mrs. Steinmetz
(Helen Hayes), who owns a dilapidated Victorian firehouse on the proposed
property won’t sell to him. Her late husband, a fire captain, left her this charming
house.
Hawk sends his naïve lunatic rustic lawyer nephew,
Willoughby Whitfield, played by Ken Berry, to talk Mrs. Steinmetz into selling.
However, Willoughby meets Mrs. Steinmetz’s car, the intelligent Volkswagen
named Herbie, a former racing car, and instead of insisting Mrs. Steinmetz
realizes Willoughby’s uncle is not a nice man and also becomes attracted to
Mrs. Steinmetz’s protector – her attractive airline stewardess niece Nicole
Harris, played by Stefanie Powers. Henceforth, the fight starts between Hawk, wishing
to demolish the firehouse, and Herbie and the team fighting him.
Dennis Schwartz said in his review, “The comedy is
derived from its nonsensical absurdities and the surreal images of the VW in
action; there’s also a tepid romance between the nerdy Willoughby and the most
appealing Nicole. This might be the best of the Herbie series, but that’s not
saying much.”
I didn’t like this one at all. It felt as though the
film went off the rails and just didn’t care. The team must have thrown their
hands in the air and thought of creating just a weird film that no one would
have gotten. Don’t see this one because it is just pure madness.
How did the next film in the franchise turn out? Stay
tuned tomorrow to find out in the continuation of “Disney Month 2023.”
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