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Now You See Him, Now You Don't
Dexter Riley and the gang from fictional Medfield college return for another round of college hijinks in the 1972 Disney comedy Now You See Me Now You Don't, which is pretty much a retread of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with just enough tweaks to the story to fool the undiscriminating 12 year old.
This time around, Dexter Riley (Kurt Rusell), with the aid of the same bolt of lightning that made him a computer brain in the first film, has come up with a liquid formula that makes anything it touches invisible and reverses itself with water. Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) hopes that the formula will win the school a $50,000 science prize so that he can pay off the school's mortgage, which is now owned by gangster AJ Arno (Ceasar Romero), who plans on tearing the college down and turning it into a gambling empire.
Screenwriter Joseph McEveety's lazy screenplay doesn't put a lot of effort in making a distinct film from the first Dexter Riley comedy. As a matter of fact, this film is presented in some sort of alternate Disney universe where the first film didn't exist. AJ Arno is seen being released from jail at the beginning of this film and running straight into Dexter Riley and they act like they have never met before. On the other hand, the kids still have Dean Higgins' office bugged and even though he learns that it's bugged in this movie, he never finds the listening device.
The whole idea of a liquid that makes you invisible but reverses by contact with water seemed kind of silly. What's the point of making yourself invisible if all someone has to do is throw a bucket of water on you to make you visible again? It seems to me that a formula for invisibility wouldn't have any real value unless the effects were more permanent and not as easily reversed, but millions of 12 year olds (myself included) didn't care about all that and, flocked to the theaters. And even for 1972, the special effects for making things look invisible were kind of cheesy. Can't believe the same movie studio that created all that cinema magic 8 years earlier in Mary Poppins, couldn't come up with more believable looking effects in this comedy.
Russell still makes the quintessential 70's teen hero in Dexter Riley and Romero and Flynn are a lot of fun as AJ Arno and Dean Higgins, respectively. It was interesting that Richard Bakalyan reprised his role as Arno's stooge from the first film. His name in the first film was Chili but in this film, he became Cookie, not to mention young Ed Begley Jr, who was a student from another school in the first film, is featured here as a Medfield student. Other familiar faces pop up along the way, including the late Mike Evans, who found time while he was playing Lionel on All in the Family, to play one of Dexter's buddies here. I just wish everyone involved here had put a little more effort into making this film distinctly different from The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.
Dexter Riley and the gang from fictional Medfield college return for another round of college hijinks in the 1972 Disney comedy Now You See Me Now You Don't, which is pretty much a retread of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with just enough tweaks to the story to fool the undiscriminating 12 year old.
This time around, Dexter Riley (Kurt Rusell), with the aid of the same bolt of lightning that made him a computer brain in the first film, has come up with a liquid formula that makes anything it touches invisible and reverses itself with water. Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) hopes that the formula will win the school a $50,000 science prize so that he can pay off the school's mortgage, which is now owned by gangster AJ Arno (Ceasar Romero), who plans on tearing the college down and turning it into a gambling empire.
Screenwriter Joseph McEveety's lazy screenplay doesn't put a lot of effort in making a distinct film from the first Dexter Riley comedy. As a matter of fact, this film is presented in some sort of alternate Disney universe where the first film didn't exist. AJ Arno is seen being released from jail at the beginning of this film and running straight into Dexter Riley and they act like they have never met before. On the other hand, the kids still have Dean Higgins' office bugged and even though he learns that it's bugged in this movie, he never finds the listening device.
The whole idea of a liquid that makes you invisible but reverses by contact with water seemed kind of silly. What's the point of making yourself invisible if all someone has to do is throw a bucket of water on you to make you visible again? It seems to me that a formula for invisibility wouldn't have any real value unless the effects were more permanent and not as easily reversed, but millions of 12 year olds (myself included) didn't care about all that and, flocked to the theaters. And even for 1972, the special effects for making things look invisible were kind of cheesy. Can't believe the same movie studio that created all that cinema magic 8 years earlier in Mary Poppins, couldn't come up with more believable looking effects in this comedy.
Russell still makes the quintessential 70's teen hero in Dexter Riley and Romero and Flynn are a lot of fun as AJ Arno and Dean Higgins, respectively. It was interesting that Richard Bakalyan reprised his role as Arno's stooge from the first film. His name in the first film was Chili but in this film, he became Cookie, not to mention young Ed Begley Jr, who was a student from another school in the first film, is featured here as a Medfield student. Other familiar faces pop up along the way, including the late Mike Evans, who found time while he was playing Lionel on All in the Family, to play one of Dexter's buddies here. I just wish everyone involved here had put a little more effort into making this film distinctly different from The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.