Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo (1977)
Well, he gets there... eventually. But most of the film up until the last thirty minutes takes place in Paris and I'm surprised this wasn't stressed more by utilising it in the title somewhere.
Still, whichever way you look at it, there's some gorgeous scenery in this film. It has a different tone compared with the first two films not
just because of the European scenery, but because there's a sense that the crew are making the most of said scenery, in the same way a tourist takes lots of photographs of places their visiting, but is less interested in filming their own locale. Because of this, this film mostly shuns their indoor sets and fills the screen with gorgeous panoramic shots of France at its most resplendent.
Of course, the sets - particularly the firehouse - gave the first two films a certain charm that's not present here, but this third film certainly is a feast for the eyes, which more than makes up for any absence.
Speaking of absentees, Dean Jones returns as Jim Douglas having been missing in the first sequel. We're told it's been twelve years since he last raced Herbie. I'm guessing that last race was some time
after The Love Bug since both sequels suggest that Herbie and Jim enjoyed an illustrious career together. This would set this perhaps a decade and a half after
The Love Bug, despite coming only eight years later in real time.
One confusing aspect is Jim's marriage to Carole at the end of
The Love Bug. She's not mentioned here - not even obliquely. Almost immediately, Jim falls for Diane and a romance begins, but this is confusing for the viewer because it's not clear how - or even
if - he's available. I suppose the two options are that he's either a widower or divorced and perhaps Disney (or the censors) felt neither were suitable to mention in a family film. However, if that's the case, why would Jim's new sidekick Wheely comment about his
multiple ex-wives? Whatever the reasoning, the lack of clarity opens up the very real (and even less tasteful) possibility that Jim is cheating on his wife while on his overseas business trip. By film's end, we still don't know and are left to write our own scripts.
Diane herself is a far less likeable female lead than Carole or Nicole. She spends most of the film whining that Jim has it in for her because she's a woman racing driver and yet her complaints are baseless. Obviously, we understand Jim's motives (and Herbie's quirks), whereas Diane doesn't, but even looking at it from her point of view, while it's clear why she would view him as an idiot, there's nothing about his words or actions to suggest his behaviour is motivated by her gender. We don't even see her discriminated towards by any of the other male drivers and so at best she comes across as having a gigantic and unnecessary chip on her shoulder based in a persecution complex. At worst, she comes across as the kind of woman who brings gender into a disagreement for leverage, or to rationalise her own shortcomings, like those videos that occasionally emerge of a woman screaming bloody murder on the phone to the police when it's clear they've just been politely asked by a man to leash their dog or remove their car from being illegally parked (in 21st Century parlance, Diane might be viewed by some as a "Karen"). There's a kind of pseudo-feminism undercurrent that doesn't hit the mark. Carole and Nicole were actually more progressive characters in being assertive, confident and capable women without feeling the need to prove anything. It takes until the last reel for the breakthrough to come and Diane to smile and show some warmth. I'd like to have seen more of this earlier in the film, rather than the screeching and vase throwing.
The best aspect of this film for me is the wealth of wonderful character actors.
There's Don Knotts, of course. And the wonderful Roy Kinnear. Throughout the film, I had a feeling that Knotts had played the George Roper role in the American versions of
Man About The House and
George & Mildred so imagine my delight at seeing him and Kinnear - who had played the original Mr. Roper's occasional partner-in-crime facing off in a comedy fight. Turns out I wasn't quite right. Knotts actually played a different character who replaced the American "George" in later seasons of
Three's Company. But the connection is still there.
Bernard Fox was a welcome presence, him having one of those "I know him but can't quite place how" faces that the best character actors have. I think I'd most recently have watched him in a couple of
Columbo episodes. Jacques Marin was another familiar face and my God - he has such an impressive filmography. Even at the point this was made he'd been in the business for thirty years, evidently with no shortage of work. He was great.
And they weren't the only ones. Everywhere you look there are all these wonderful French character actors in even the smallest of roles. In fact, I'm going to say that my favourites were two characters who didn't utter a word: they're the two fishermen in the rowing boat who gawp as Herbie emerges from the water. They had such great comedy faces and the looks they gave were priceless. They gave me the biggest laugh and made the film for me.
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