The Million Dollar Duck (1971)

          Based on a story by Ted Key, who created the characters Hazel and Mr. Peabody and Sherman, this amiable live-action picture from Walt Disney Productions offers a modern spin on the old Aesop fable about the goose that laid the golden egg. Adhering to the Disney trope of building stories around bumbling professors, The Million Dollar Duck stars Dean Jones as Albert Dooley, a kindly young professor with financial troubles. One day at his lab, a duck that hasn’t proved useful as a research animal wanders out of its cage and into a neighboring lab, where the fowl gets irradiated. Albert takes the duck home, only to discover that the duck now lays eggs made of pure gold. This development delights Albert’s scatterbrained wife, Katie (Sandy Duncan), even though the couple’s son, Jimmy (Lee Montgomery), simply enjoys having a pet. (He names the duck Charley.) Seeing a way out of his fiscal woes, Albert conspires with his buddy, a lawyer named Fred Hines (Tony Roberts), to sell the eggs and make a fortune. Meanwhile, Albert’s next-door neighbor, U.S. Treasury employee Finley Hooper (Joe Flynn), suspects Albert is up to something. Farcical intrigue ensues.

          All of this stuff is completely silly, of course, and The Million Dollar Duck is filled with tomfoolery along the lines of adults sitting on all fours and barking like dogs to make Charley do his trick, since the duck has a phobia about canines. Per the Disney formula, the picture also features a very long climactic chase filled with questionable special effects. (Picture Jones riding the cherry picker attached to a truck, then squealing every time the truck nears an overpass.) Nonetheless, the filmmakers keep things simple in terms of narrative elements, so instead of trying to anthropomorphize the titular critter, The Million Dollar Duck merely depicts what happens when Albert, Fred, and Katie get greedy. Chances are you can guess whether the major characters learn to accept wholesome values by the end of the story. Flynn and Jones provide their usual competent work, while aggressively wholesome costar Duncan, appearing in one of her first movies, makes the most of a trope about her character spewing malapropisms along the lines of “You don’t have to yell at me—I have 20/20 hearing.” Plus, it’s hard to get too stern about a flick that features crusty supporting player James Gregory speaking this unlikely dialogue: “Yes, there does seem to be a certain degree of duck involvement here.”

The Million Dollar Duck: FUNKY

Shoot Out (1971)

If the idea of a cuddly revenge picture strikes your fancy, then the middling Western thriller Shoot Out is for you. The picture starts out well enough, with brooding bank robber Clay Lomax (Gregory Peck) getting released from jail and setting out to find his former partner, Sam Foley (James Gregory), a double-crossin’ varmint who’s got a date with the business end of Clay’s six-shooter. Aware that Clay is out for blood, Sam hires a group of thugs to keep tabs on Clay, but misjudges the character of the gang’s leader, Bobby Jay Jones (Robert F. Lyons). Turns out Bobby Jay’s a psycho looking for trouble, so when Bobby Jay starts endangering innocent people, Clay decides to take care of Bobby Jay before his showdown with Sam. So far, so good. But then the real plot kicks in: A former lover of Clay’s saddles him with a young girl who may or may not be his daughter, forcing Clay to juggle caregiving and gunplay. Whereas the logical narrative choice would’ve been to portray Clay as a reluctant father figure who can’t fathom how to keep a child amused, the filmmakers instead depict Clay as a natural parent who looks after the girl’s diet and hygiene, and even knows silly games and stories with which to keep her amused. This is the deadly criminal at the center of our story? Illogically softening Clay’s characterization drains nearly all the tension from Shoot Out, transforming the film from a guns-a-blazin’ oater to a softhearted family picture. To confuse matters further, Shoot Out returns to its original dark-and-nasty vibe toward the end of the story, because Bobby Jay goes on a killing spree that sets Clay’s blood a-boilin’. The climax of the picture is actually quite exciting, but the sudden flurry of high-stakes action seems to drift in from another movie. Still, Peck fans might dig the way Shoot Out bridges the actor’s softer side and the tough image he assumed in latter-day films, and the movie is assembled with utmost efficiency by veteran helmer Henry Hathaway. Shoot Out is watchable, but beware the gooey center. (Available as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)

Shoot Out: FUNKY