Disney is going through its back catalog and releasing some of the live action movies that they have made over the years.  Having grown up watching many of these movies when they were broadcast on The Wonderful World of Disney, I was glad too see that even some of their lesser titles are making their way to DVD in reasonably priced editions.  Unfortunately, Disney can't seem to make up its mind on how these films should be treated.  Many of them preserve the films original aspect ration, but then there are movies like Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo where the sides have been hacked off and released in a pan and scan version.  This is too bad, because this film has some lovely scenery of the French countryside and it would have been appealing to see it in a nice widescreen print.

This is the third Herbie movie that Disney made.  Racecar driver, Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) finds a little VW racing car that just happens to be sentient, in The Love Bug (1969.)  Herbie Rides Again followed that in 1974, where the little car helped save an old lady's house.  (None of the original cast participated in this sequal.)  This third movie, Herbie goes to Monte Carlo (1977,) brings back Dean Jones in his role of Jim Douglas.  He, along with his mechanic Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts,) are off to Paris with Herbie to attempt to win the Trans-France race.  This rally, running form Paris to Monte Carlo, is the first race that Jim and Herbie have entered in 12 years.  (The reasons for this are not given.)  They want to win this large international race to launch their comeback, but there are problems.

First off, some jewel thieves have stashed an incredibly large diamond in Herbie's gas tank, and they naturally want it back at any costs.  So not only does Herbie have to beat the other cars, but he also has to out run the gun wielding crooks.  Added to that is the fact that Herbie has fallen in love.  Yep, the Love Bug has been bitten himself.  He's fallen for a cute Italian sports car, a little Lancia, driven by Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars.)  Herbie's attempts to impress this car get Dean and Wheely in trouble with the race officials and Diane who thinks they are trying to have her eliminated from the race.  The qualifying rounds go poorly with Herbie stopping half way through to admire the Lancia, but luckily the race officials are nice guys and give them another chance to qualify.  This  leads up to the big race where the villains are chasing Herbie, Herbie is chasing the Lancia, and Jim is just trying to handle Herbie who has a mind of his own.

This film was a pale comparison to the earlier entries.  While it wasn't bad, it doesn't have the charm that the earlier movies had.  One problem is that the joke has worn a little thin by this time.  Everyone knows that Herbie is alive and can do amazing things.  They don't even take the time to introduce Herbie or set up the premise in the movie, they assume that everyone knows who he is.  (A safe assumption.)  But seeing Herbie squirt oil on someone who has insulted him or zip around cars at an incredible velocity just isn't as funny as it was two movies ago.

The subplots are all pretty lame too.  The diamond thieves are bungling and idiotic, and the fact that they are able to steal the diamond in the first place, even with inside help, is fairly amazing.  The gags involving the crooks trying to recover the jewel, only to be thwarted by Herbie are fairly amusing, but not outrageously funny.  The second subplot involving Herbie falling in love gets old quick.  The scenes of Herbie and the Lancia flirting go on for way too long.  They are not funny, it isn't really touching, and it doesn't advance the plot.  It is just a bunch of filler.

There are some good aspects to the movie though, it wasn't all bad.  I thought it was great to see Dean Jones back in the driver's seat again, and Don Knotts made a great sidekick.  I wish Knotts had more screen time; his goofy antics were cut kind of short.  The big race at the end was entertaining, if predictable, and my children liked the antics with the thieves.  If they had put in a few more jokes, and removed some of the romance, this would have been a better film.

Audio:

The English two channel mono mix sounds good and appropriate for the movie.  There is not a lot of bass in the soundtrack but that is to be expected with a movie of this age.  This DVD also has captions for the hearing impaired in English, and subtitles in Spanish.

Video:

The sad news about this movie is that Disney decided to release it only in a pan and scan version.  I have no idea what could have prompted them to make this bad decision when they have been releasing many of their movies in their original aspect ratio.  Both The Great Locomotive Chase and Now You See Him, Now You Don't were widescreen, and the later film was even anamorphically enhanced.  Another strange thing is that these two films were released the same day as Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.  Why they decided to hack up only this film is a mystery.

As for the picture quality, there were specks of dirt and scratches on the print, but they weren't too bad.  The image had a good amount of detail, and the colors were fine, though they looked like they were just a tad faded.  There was some grain present in the print also, but it was fairly minor.  As for digital defects, there was some aliasing that was easy to notice, but it was mainly in the background and wasn't distracting.

The Extras:

This was a bare bones release with no extras at all.  I wish that Disney would have included at least a trailer.

Final Thoughts:

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo is a mediocre entry in the series.  It has some amusing bits, and it should be given credit for attempting to get back to its roots with a solid racing story, but it just doesn't work as well as it should.  The bumbling thieves got a little tiring (no pun intended,) but the Hebie-Lancia love story was really annoying.

The fact that Disney modified the movie so it would "fit your TV" is horrendous.  With the first two movies in the series have the correct aspect ratio.  I can't imagine why Disney thought that it would be better to chop up this entry.  Because this DVD is a bare bones version of a mediocre film that has been dramatically altered from its original version, I can't recommend that anyone see this.  Skip it.