NO DEPOSIT, NO RETURN
US, 1976, 112 minutes, Colour.
David Niven, Darren Mc Gavin, Don Knotts, Barbara Feldon.
Directed by Norman Tokar.
No Deposit, No Return is a typical Disney comedy of the '70s. It has the added attraction of David Niven - though a little out of place in a Disney film. (He was to appear with Helen Hayes and Jodie Foster in Disney's Candleshoe a year later.) The film has the familiar ingredients of children, gangster pursuits, mistaken identities, wealth. Most of the comedy is provided by Don Knotts, a regular in Disney film of the 70s, and he has some hilarious sequences especially on the framework of a skyscraper being built. Very pleasing children's entertainment.
1. How entertaining a Disney film? The Disney qualities? The presentation the comedy issues? Children, parents, grandparents, crooks and police?
2. The significance of the title and the reference to the children, the credits sequences? Los Angeles, the treatment of the plot for a young audience?
3. Comment on the special effects and the impact that they have, especially the sequence with the heights, on the roof, Burt on the girding of the building, the car chase and all its details?
4. How was the film as modern kind of fairy story, children with needs, ogre-kind of grandfather, money, the two crooks as good-natured, the villainy of the criminals? Children's response to this kind of modern fairytale?
5. How sympathetic were Tracy and Jay? Could children identify with them? School, their flight home, their pranks? The importance of the skunk and his presence, especially on the high buildings, in helping them be rescued at the end? Lonely children, excusing their mother for her absence etc? Their grandfather?
6. The humour of the cross-cutting to the grandfather and Jameson preparing for the children's arrival? Grandfather and his attitude towards the children, mother's attitude?
7. The transition to the burglary and its humour, Burt and Duke as comic crooks? Turner and Longnecker as comic policemen? How enjoyable is this kind of comic character?
8. The combination of all the ingredients in the taxi ride of the children, the crooks escaping, the plot of the kidnapping and the children trying to help the crooks?
9. The characters of Burt and Duke, good-hearted, watching over the children, the humour of the ransom notes, the comedy involved with them both, the rendezvous for the finale, the safe and Duke rescuing the children, being excused by the police at the end?
10. The character of grandfather, the parody of the kidnapping, his disregard, his gradually being involved? Jameson as the comic butler?
11. The humour in the characters of Turner and Longnecker, police competence and incompetence, their involvement in the chase? Longnecker and the mistaken clues?
12. How serious was the presentation of Big Joe and the criminals? The humour of all the characters being hooked by their heels towards the end of the film? Is this what should happen to gangsters in this kind of film?
13. How important was the character of Mrs Osborne? Her absence in Korea, her return for the children, the building up of the relationship between them at the end?
14. How satisfying is this kind of Disney comedy, its cuteness, yet its humour and its touching on real issues which children are interested in and can identify with?
