User Reviews

While I have enjoyed reading many of San Diego's reviews of IMDb films I feel he must be corrected on this one. I don't believe this was ever intended to compete with the "Smokey and the Bandit" type film. This was a LOW BUDGET Disney type film filled with Family oriented Stars of family shows. Cheryl Miller from "Daktari", Jed Allan from "Lassie",Spencer Milligan from "Land of the Lost" and a magnificent Icon of Children and Family shows Paul Winchell, who is brilliant. Rose Marie "The Dick Van Dyke Show" all surrounding the very Versatile Ron Masak. While complimenting Mr. Masak's pantomime (Comparing it to Red Skelton) he takes an uncalled for swipe at Mr. Masak's singing of 2 songs.Had he checked the bio of this man on the IMDb he would have seen that Mr. Masak toured the world doing vocal impressions so I don't think too many live audiences or the director of a world touring show..or this film,would have allowed someone to sing off key and survive. So maybe San Diego should check his musical knowledge as I found the songs delightful and Masak's voice pleasant. Not a GREAT film but a good clean family romp.

When I first saw this film in the spring of 2001, I thought it was the most humorous and amazing camera work I had ever seen. I still feel this way. The movie starts off with this banjo crazy epic jingle about epic heroes and the greatest of them all, the Man From Clover Grove. I like Millie Swickle, Claude Raintree, and the guy who plays Millie's father. It's all so cute and funny or ridiculous, you'll laugh yourself right out of your seat and swear you've been beat up by stupid. There's this hilariously long chase seen, where you get the feeling the director got out the weirdest music he was glad he never through away and decided he had to roll a lot of film to make the movie longer. Also there's all this play going on about Claude Raintree, our legendary hero, and Millie Swickle, his love interest. It's cute. As crazy as this movie is with orphans traveling in the back of a sort of dump truck, a horrible minstrel performance by a deputy and police chasing remote control vehicles all to the tune of psychedelic music, it's a delightful campfire tale type sort of story and filming. It makes you laugh cause it's so incredibly stupid. It's the most fantastic film ever made. I wish I could see it at least six more times.

Character actor Ron Masak's vehicle is a low budget southern country film. Everyone was making them in the 70's from Burt Reynolds to Ron Howard to David Carradine and yes, even Fonda (Peter and Henry). Their films had back road car chases (usually involving moonshine) supported by honky tonk music (usually sung by Jerry Reed), but this one has a sheriff chasing a remote control toy car supported by silence. Yes, a toy. This is a family country film in the vein of "The Dukes of Hazzard" (minus the charm, minus the humor, minus the car chases, minus the music, minus the cut-off shorts). Think of "The Dukes of Hazard" making toys in their barn and nothing else and you get the drift. This one also has no budget, no stars (Ron Masak is perhaps best known as Sheriff Metzger on "Murder She Wrote"), and no successful humor. Joe Higgins who made a living playing a poor man's version of Jackie Gleason's character in "Smokey and the Bandit" does his Sheriff act here with poorly timed double takes. Stu Gilliam (a poor man's Cleavon Little of "Blazing Saddles") plays his deputy as if he were in a minstrel show. Rose Marie has a tiny role as a nun. Even the usually cute and perky Cheryl Miller ("Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion" and "Daktari"), looking a lot like Karen Black, is used to misadvantage (cheesecake is best served without bulky long sleeve shirts buttoned to the neck and flair pants to the ground). This film had some association with St. Vincent's so the producer's heart was in the right place and if nothing else one can be assured that the film never gets worse than the beginning, a truly terrible, long, flat, off-key, song sung by Ron Masak. The film gets better merely by ending the song. But warning, he warbles a ballad (ala Rod McKuen) somewhere in the middle while doing a not too bad rendition of Red Skelton's old pantomime act.