The Shaggy Dog (1959)

Film: The Shaggy Dog (1959)

Stars: Tommy Kirk, Fred MacMurray, Jean Hagen, Annette Funicello, Tim Considine, Cecil Kellaway

Director: Charles Barton

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Annette Funicello: click here to learn more about Ms. Funicello (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Annette Funicello joins Shirley Temple as the only two actresses this season that really became famous as children, and that's where they started their reign as "America's Sweetheart."  In Funicello's case, though, she began not in the movies like Temple did but in television.  Funicello was the star of the original Mickey Mouse Club TV series on ABC during the 1950's, but unlike the 1990's remake (which would feature future superstars Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, & Britney Spears), the only one of the stars of the original that would truly break out into superstardom was Funicello, who proved to be the most popular actor in the cast from the start.  Hand-selected by Walt Disney for the show, she quickly turned around her fame with The Mickey Mouse Club into starring roles in both the Disney TV series Zorro and then her feature film debut with the studio, today's film The Shaggy Dog.

(Spoilers Ahead) Even by the standards of a Disney live-action movie, this is a bizarre plot, but I'll give it a shot.  Wilby Daniels (Kirk) is an ordinary teenage boy, one who pals around with his buddy Buzz (Considine) and lusts after girls, namely Buzz's on-again-off-again girlfriend Allison (Funicello) and the new neighbor Francesca (Roberta Shore).  When he's visiting Francesca's father's house, he comes across a man named Professor Plumcott (Kellaway), and accidentally takes a ring from him that has magical powers, namely that it will turn him into Francesca's sheepdog Chiffon.  Adventures ensue, as Wilby transforms (with little control) between both himself and Chiffon, including when he and Buzz are attempting to take both girls to the Prom at the same time, but it's a Russian spy ring that's uncovered by Wilby that takes over the wackiest final third of the film.  With the aid of his dog-hating father Mr. Daniels (MacMurray), he stops the spies, but Buzz & Wilby end up getting neither girl, as Francesca moves back to Paris and Allison realizes that she can do better.

You'll notice that I barely mentioned Fred MacMurray in that plot, which is weird because MacMurray is the most famous name in this cast and would've been in 1959 as well.  Walt Disney had a history of making a lot of live-action films in the 1950's & 60's, and the studio would continue to do this after his death well into the 1970's.  This was because at a time when the studio's costly animated features struggled at the box office (it's hard to believe now, but in their initial run, now-beloved classics like Alice in Wonderland and Sleeping Beauty were flops for the studio), the live-action movies were gigantic hits.  The Shaggy Dog was the studio's most successful feature of the decade (more than even Cinderella), and because of this movie's success, three stars who would feature prominently in a lot of those pictures were Kirk, MacMurray, & Funicello.

Annette, though, doesn't have a lot to do in this movie (and while he's in a lot of it, MacMurray doesn't get much to "do" in it either).  She's basically just sitting around waiting for one of the boys to call (this was apparently a recurring motif for her until she broke out in non-Disney films a few years later).  Maybe that's for the best as The Shaggy Dog isn't very good.  The plot makes no sense, and it's really more silly than funny (when you need it to be both).  Kirk is charming as the lead (you get why he became a star in films like this), but MacMurray and his onscreen wife Jean Hagen are a snooze.  Given both of them have roots in film noir, and we're watching a movie about a plot to foil Russian spies, you kind of wish they'd ditch the dog and just make this into a gritty thriller.