AlsExGal

The Mayberry town council is having a meeting in the mayor's office about evicting elderly Mayberry citizen Frank Myers for unpaid back taxes on his property. The bank refuses to loan Myers the money, so it is Andy's sad duty to evict Frank, which he does. But of course Andy does it in as sympathetic a way as humanly possible.

Later, Frank is invited to move in with Andy since he has no place to go. Frank is going through his things in Andy's house when Frank mentions a one-hundred-year-old 100-dollar bond that was sold to an ancestor by the city of Mayberry that is compounded annually at 8.5% interest and has no expiration. If paid to Frank in 1961 it would amount to over 349 thousand dollars. The town can't pay, so suddenly the ironic situation arises of Frank being able to evict the town, rather than vice versa.

Not much has changed in 63 years - the impoverished elderly being cast aside, your treatment being based on your perceived wealth, etc. The attitude of the town changes from callous to apologetic when they learn that they are the debtors in this case. Complications ensue.

The actor playing Frank was Andy Clyde, star of innumerable two-reelers, first for Mack Sennett, then for Educational, and then for Columbia, for well over three decades. During most of that time he appeared in the persona of an affable old codger with a thick mustache and wire-rimmed spectacles, a role he continued to play on TV's The Real McCoys and Lassie, when he no longer needed makeup to look old. In the early years of his career Clyde was quite versatile with disguises, and could turn up unexpectedly in character parts, portraying anything from a grizzled hobo to a prissy minister, sometimes playing multiple roles in the same film.

... but fortunately, their output quality trended dramatically up starting the following year.

Overall it's just a jaw dropping novelty. A group of convicts, by virtue of their good conduct, get to work out in the open air on the road-building crew. There don't seem to be any guards - These guys are all on the honor system! And when they get hungry or thirsty they show up at Mother Miller's farm for some cookies and milk! They steal and molest nothing, not even the good-looking girl Mother Miller has hired to assist her, in spite of many of them being without female companionship for, possibly, years. Honestly! These guys are not in prison for dropping out of Sunday school!

And when one of the "bad" convicts escapes from the prison itself and threatens the existence of the honor system, erudite convict Bertie Gray (Conrad Nagel) suggests that the convicts on the road crew help in recapturing him as a means of preserving said honor system. Not only does the warden heartily agree, he passes out rifles to them! Where is a crusading journalist when you need one?

I can only assume director Mervyn LeRoy had directed so many Alice White films that, by this time, nothing seemed preposterous to him.

I'll cut this some slack since Warner Brothers had planned to make this a musical (???) - thus the presence of Bernice Claire in the cast. They had to change their plans when the moviegoing public began to mutiny against the glut of poor to mediocre movie musicals being produced.

I will say that the acting is pretty good, and it isn't overly talkie as so many early talkies were. But that plot - Yikes!

This film is such a time capsule - the clothes, the music, the cars. It really takes me back to 1976 - I graduated high school that year. It was probably considered innovative for its time with its mainly African American cast and even -possibly - a trans character.

It's all about a single day at Leon Barrow's Car Wash in LA, where the cars are still largely washed by hand. There are a few character driven threads running through it, but it's largely an excuse for some sophomoric humor and some good disco-adjacent music from Rose Royce including the joyous titular theme song "Car Wash". Comics who make appearances include George Carlin as a taxi driver who gets stiffed by a mute prostitute and Richard Pryor as a money obsessed preacher whose character is oddly prescient. It does have something to say about the exuberance of youth, who feel like there is always tomorrow, always plenty of time. In contrast to that is Ivan Dixon, of Hogan's Heroes fame, in a more serious role as an ex-convict trying to support two children on what he makes at the car wash while dealing with his parole officer constantly appearing to check up on him.

If you watch this today you may be missing various scenes you know that you remember, such as the not so happy ending for Melanie Mayron's character. Also, for some reason, Danny DeVito's minor scene with Brooke Adams, which has nothing to do with the plot, may or may not appear.

Either you are going to feel this one or you're not. If you do feel it, more than likely it is because you have a fondness for the 70s.