The Apple Dumpling Gang is a 1975 family comedy western starring Don Knotts, Tim Conway, Bill Bixby, Susan Clark, Harry Morgan, David Wayne, Slim Pickens, Clay O'Brien, Brad Savage, and Stacy Manning.
In the Gold Rush town of Quake City (state unclear), gambler and rake Russell Donovan (Bixby) is trying to build up enough money to move out to New Orleans and open a hotel, but gets waylaid during a card game by local swindler Wintle (Don Knight) and asked to take possession of some "valuables" coming in on a coach the next day. These valuables turn out to be three children (Manning, Savage, and O'Brien), and Donovan immediately tries to do the very reasonable thing of having the city take them on as wards, but the local judge/sheriff/barber (Morgan) insists that since he agreed to take on Wintle's "valuables", they're his now.
Meanwhile, two local would-be bandits, Amos (Conway) and Theodore (Knotts) attempt on several occasions to rob Donovan, but fail because they're idiots. They're on all the promotional material for the movie, but the movie is really about Donovan and him learning to care for these kids. Eventually he agrees to marry Dusty (Clark), daughter of the owner of the carriage line (Wayne), as a matter of practicality since obviously an unmarried woman can't take care of kids or something. And then the kids find a gigantic gold nugget in a mine that their father left them and suddenly owning these kids becomes a profitable prospect. Evil bandit Stillwell (Pickens) comes to town to steal the nugget, chaos ensues, Dusty and Donovan fall in love (obvs), and they...kind of adopt Theodore and Amos? It's all very weird if you think about it.
I'm sure I'd seen this movie before, but I don't really remember it. I think that for Michelle (who's the reason I own it), it falls into the same nostalgia niche as, say, Condorman or Cloak & Dagger would for me - it's not a good movie, but it's comforting because of the memories it evokes. I do not have such memories around The Apple Dumpling Gang, and so I'm free to get vaguely annoyed that the movie eats what must be five full minutes on a set piece where Dusty tries to beat up Donovan in public, utterly trashing the saloon, because he bought a bed and she assumes that means he wants to fuck her.
The best comedy in the movie comes from Conway and Knotts doing amazingly timed physical stuff and occasionally fun turns of phrase (also, you could do a trailer recut of this and include dialog from Brokeback Mountain and that would be funny as hell). But it's a G-rated Disney family comedy first and last, and it's not a touchstone from my childhood, so it just kinda cute as far as I'm concerned.
My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Low
Next up: The Bad Seed
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