Friday, November 11, 2011

Gentle Giant (1967)

watching this pilot movie for the series "Gentle Ben".  the cast pretty much is the same from movie to series, except for Vera Miles.  which is OK.

it's a pretty predictable movie, and when seen with 21st century eyes one wonders that anyone would ever have been allowed to keep a bear cub chained up in a shed, but it probably happens more often than I'd like to think about.

little bitty Clint Howard is the real star of the movie.  you can tell it's him by those teeth.  he evolved into a better actor than you see here, but he's very engaging.  I always liked him as Balok from Star Trek, but he was dubbed in that.  I had to laugh when he bit the villain's thumb.

however, this movie plays like three TV episodes strung together and padded a bit.  I haven't seen the TV show in a long time, but I imagine it to be similar to Ivan Tors other productions.

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