Movie Type: Family-Oriented Comedy, Comedy Western
Themes: Orphans, Marriages of Convenience
Main Cast: Bill Bixby, Susan Clark, Don Knotts, Tim Conway, David Wayne
Release Year: 1975
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: G
Plot
The Apple Dumpling Gang stars Bill Bixby as Russell Donovan, a slick frontier gambler. In Runyon-esque fashion, he is compelled to look after three precocious oprhaned kids. He can't handle the responsibilities alone, so he agrees to an in-name-only marriage to hoydenish stagecoach driver, Magnolia Dusty Clydesdale (Susan Clark). Fortuitously, they discover that a mine belonging to the kids' late father is worth millions. This brings several disreputable characters into the storyline: bumbling "nice" bandits Theodore Ogelvie and Amos (Don Knotts and Tim Conway), and deadly "bad" bandits headed by Frank Stillwell (Slim Pickens). Based on a novel by Jack M. Bickham, The Apple Dumpling Gang was successful enough to spawn a sequel-not to mention several future screen teamings for Don Knotts and Tim Conway. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Slim Pickens - Frank Stillwell; John McGiver - Leonard Sharpe; Don Knight - John Wintle; Clay O'Brien - Bobby Bradley; Brad Savage - Clovis Bradley; Stacy Manning - Celia Bradley; Iris Adrian - Poker Polly; Wally K. Berns - Cheating Charley; Jim Boles - Easy Archie; James Brodhead - The Mouthpiece; Pepe Callahan - Clemons; Dennis Fimple - Rudy Hooks; Richard Lee-Sung - Oh So; Bing Russell - Herm Dally; Fran Ryan - Mrs. Stockley; Joshua Shelley - Broadway Phil; Olan Soule - Rube Cluck; Dick Winslow - Slippery Kid; Arthur Wong Ngok Tai - No S'o; Dawn Little Sky - Big Foot; Tom Waters - Rowdy Joe Dover; Harry Morgan - Homer McCoy; Bill Dunbar - Fast Eddie Card Dealer
Credit
John Mansbridge - Art Director, Walter Tyler - Art Director, Ronald R. Grow - First Assistant Director, Norman Tokar - Director, Raymond A. de Leuw - Editor, Buddy Baker - Composer (Music Score), Frank Phillips - Cinematographer, Bill Anderson - Producer, Frank C. Regula - Sound/Sound Designer, Herb Taylor - Sound/Sound Designer, Jesse Wayne - Stunts, Don Tait - Screenwriter, Jack M. Bickham - Book Author
The Apple Dumpling Gang is a 1975 Disney film about slick gambler Russel Donavan (played by Bill Bixby) who is duped into taking care of a group of orphan children who eventually strike gold during the California Gold Rush.
The movie stars Tim Conway and Don Knotts as a team of bumbling gangsters who try to steal the gold, but are later offered it by the children. Conway and Knotts play the leads in the sequel (The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again), in which Bixby and the rest of the original cast - with the exception of Harry Morgan as the sheriff in the first one - does not appear. The Apple Dumpling Gang also features Susan Clark as the stagecoach driver who is persuaded to marry the gambler in an attempt for both of them to keep custody of the children; Harry Morgan as the sheriff who doubles as the barber and Justice of the Peace; and Slim Pickens as Knotts' and Conway's former boss who tries to kidnap the children and steal the gold.
The film was a hit at the box office, and in fact, the most successful Disney film of the entire 1970s . In October 1980, it became one of the first Disney movies to be released on videocassette. It is also known as being the first film to feature the comedy duo of Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Knotts and Conway developed different styles of pulling off their comedy; Conway's characters were usually the dumber of the two, which made Knotts usually the brains of the group, though they were both equally inept. Both The Apple Dumpling Gang and its sequel, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, have been released on Disney DVD in the United States. In the UK, however, only the original film has been made available on DVD at the time of writing.
Sequel
In 1979, Knotts and Conway reprised their roles in the unsuccessful sequel The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. Bill Bixby, Susan Clark, and the rest of the cast did not appear. Harry Morgan was the only other member of the cast to appear in the sequel, although he plays a different character. Without the presence of Bill Bixby, Susan Clark and the three children, the film was not a success. Knotts and Conway would team up for two more films together (both independent films co-written by Conway), The Prize Fighter in 1979, and The Private Eyes. They were also in Gus released in 1976, even though they did not share any scenes together; instead, Tom Bosley was Conway's foil in that movie.
