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To wit, Stevenson directed The Shaggy Dog and its sequel, The Shaggy D.A. Tokar directed the first two Herbie, the Love Bug films while McEveety handled the last two theatrical Herbie films of that era: the Monte Carlo adventure and the truly dreadful Rio de Janeiro junket (aka Herbie Goes Bananas.) The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again may be the most distinguished of his output by default and its good enough that it's a shame Disney has only released it in a bare-bones full screen DVD nearly a decade ago. The first film was ostensibly the tale of a gambler redeemed by the love of a strong woman and a trio of pinch-their-cheeks-cute moppets, but Tim Conway and Don Knotts as Theodore and Amos, a pair of would-be lawbreakers who mostly ended up victims of their own stupidity and bad luck, provided the best moments.

The sequel has them breaking out on their own to become gentlemen of leisure and respectability. Of course, it all goes horribly, ridiculously wrong. While it is often a mistake to elevate enjoyable supporting players to lead roles, ADGRA solves this by surrounding the pair with a bench-deep roster of great character actors and giving them all worthwhile bits of business. Kenneth Mars is a shambling hulking delight as a seemingly unstoppable federal marshal who is reduced to a blubbering psychotic mess when he crosses paths with Conway and Knotts. Tim Matheson, fresh from a breakthrough role in National Lampoon's Animal House the year before, uses his frat-boy-bland good looks as a private who may be up to no good. Harry Morgan stepped away from M*A*S*H to play the put-upon and increasingly flummoxed commander of a fort under siege (no Colonel Potter fortitude here, though it is interesting to note he is the only other returning actor from the first film, albeit in a different role.) The irreplaceable Jack Elam shows up late in the film and gains laughs from just the way he carries himself.

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again is episodic by nature with its 90 minute running time divided into three distinct sections: Theodore and Amos arrive in town and are mistaken for bank robbers; they flee but with their luck, it is into the arms of the military and they are conscripted; and after destroying a military fort they are sentenced to prison but uncover a plan to rob a train and manage to redeem themselves. The ending feels particularly rushed (although in a nice deus ex machina, Native Americans fortuitously come to the rescue and are not the bad guys) and the best segment is the glorious slapstick in the middle part by which Conway and Knotts unintentionally torch Fort Concho to the ground. Reflecting on its impression on me as a young'un, it appeals to that childhood fear that no matter how hard you try to be an adult, you are in over your head and every step you make is inevitably going to be bungled. Conway and Knotts may never have been Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, but their shtick still works 30 years later.

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