Movie Type: Family-Oriented Comedy, Family-Oriented Adventure
Themes: Heroic Mission, Unlikely Heroes
Main Cast: Cloris Leachman, Charles Martin Smith, Harvey Korman, John Vernon, Stephan W. Burns
Release Year: 1980
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
MPAA Rating: G
Plot
In the fourth installment of the "Herbie" series of Volkswagen Bug fantasies, the magical car has lost a lot of its sheen as it is retreaded into a journey through Central America. D.J. (Charles Martin Smith) and Pete (Stephan W. Burns) want to enter their supernatural car in a special, high-stakes race in Brazil. And so they set off driving with that goal in mind. Along the way the car ends up in a bullring playing the role of matador, the best of several incongruous adventures. Most audiences will still favor The Love Bug, the 1969 hit that spawned this third sequel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
John Mansbridge - Art Director, Rodger Maus - Art Director, Agustin Ytuarte - Art Director, Bill Shepard - Casting, Don Tait - Co-producer, Win Phelps - First Assistant Director, Vincent McEveety - Director, Michael Dmytryk - Second Unit Director, Gordon D. Brenner - Editor, Frank De Vol - Composer (Music Score), Frank De Vol - Songwriter, Louis Mann - Production Designer, Frank Phillips - Cinematographer, Ron Miller - Producer, Norman Rockett - Set Designer, Roger M. Shook - Set Designer, Art Cruickshank - Special Effects, Danny Lee - Special Effects, Don Tait - Screenwriter
Loosely picking up where Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo left off, Pete Stancheck (Stephen W. Burns) has inherited the one-of-a-kind automobile from his uncle, Jim Douglas. Pete travels to Mexico with his friend Davy "D.J." Johns (Charles Martin Smith) to retrieve the car. There, they meet little Paco (Joaquin Garay, III), a comically mischievous, orphaned pickpocket.
Pete and D.J. board a ship to Rio de Janeiro to enter Herbie in the Brazil Grand Primeo. Unbeknownst to them, Paco has hitched a ride under Herbie's hood to avoid three irate victims of his thievery. On the trip, they meet an anthropology student named Melissa (Elyssa Davalos) and her extragavant, eccentric aunt Louise (Cloris Leachman), who is trying to find a husband for her niece. When Herbie wreaks havoc on board, Pete pretends to court Melissa, with the intended result that her Aunt Louise is soon sponsoring the men for their race.
Disney had over 20 'rust' Herbies made for Herbie Goes Bananas.
Meanwhile, Herbie helps Paco, who has dubbed the car 'Ocho' (which means 'eight' in Spanish, Paco having simply added together the individual numerals in Herbie's number 53, also being a pun on the affective Mexican nickname for the beetle: "vocho" or also pronounced "bocho". ), escape captivity. When the overenthusiastic ship's captain Blythe (Harvey Korman) has his costume party wrecked by the mischievous boy and car, he puts Herbie on trial and sentences him to be dropped in the sea. Herbie becomes a rustbucket as a result of immersion in the saltwater, but is rescued from the sea by Paco and disguised as a taxi.
Thence follows an Incagold-stealing plot, Herbie's matadorian part in a bullfight, romance between Aunt Louise and Captain Blythe, and some bananas which are initially used to camouflage Herbie in a convoy of farm vehicles travelling to market and later used to comic effect by Herbie and Paco in an attempt to stop the villains escaping in their plane. The bad guys (headed by Animal House alum John Vernon and The Godfather'sAlex Rocco) are in pursuit of Paco, who misplaced some important film when he stole their wallets.
Herbie is not once referred to by his name by any of the principal characters in this movie; the only person who knows Herbie's true name is the garage owner.
Only a few of the rusted Herbies that were used as props are left, despite being sold for a mere $25.00 each, a few of them reside in a musueam at Effingham Illinois.
The prop Herbie thrown into the sea was never retrieved. However, it has been recently discovered rotting on the Pacific sea bed.[citation needed]
A total of 26 VW Beetles were used due to the enormous amount of stunts and tricks.
Fritz Feld, who plays Chief Steward, also appeared in Herbie Rides Again as the Sheraton Palace Hotel Restaurant Maitre d'.
Continuity
Although Captain Blythe claims at the costume party that his fancy dress outfit is an exact replica of that worn by Admiral Lord Nelson, this is not the case. Blythe sports an eyepatch, something which Nelson is rumored to have worn after he was blinded in his right eye but never actually did.
When Herbie is thrown from the ship, he is missing his rear license plate, but yet when Paco retrieves him, it's still on the back.
