Dondi

I have looked for this movie for years. Seeing it as a youth was a special experience. I have never seen it in video stores. It is a warm and tender movie with some laughs about a war orphan and an army unit. I strongly recommend the movie to anyone with kids.

The summary line is, of course, intended to parody David Kory's very strange use of language in this film, but I can't shake myself of the idea that the pinhead who first proposed this as a project spoke of it in like glowing words.

The comic strip was okay for what it was. But trying to make a movie out of it? Watching this is a stomach-turner to be sure. The whole syrupy lovableness bit is nauseating, and I've heard stories of kids who watched this when it first came out having squirmed with embarrassment at it, which is pretty painful when you consider how undemanding kids usually are when it comes to kid-friendly movies. Even worse are the stale, unfunny jokes.

A sequel was planned, but thankfully it went nowhere. David Kory couldn't act, but even worse is the fact that his director couldn't, evidently, do his own job either.

I was about about 9 years old when the movie Dondi came to the Fernrock Theater in North Philly, the neighborhood I grew up in. I had been an avid reader of the comic strip (published in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer) since it was first introduced and I suppose because of my age at the time, I related to the title character. All I remember today is that I loved it as a kid and cried like a baby at all the sappy parts.

I am sure if I were to revisit this movie today as a jaded 50-something year old guy, I too might rain harsh words about this movie which has accumulated a whopping 3.3 stars by the reviewers. But I choose to rate it based on the way it made me feel when I was nine, and too naive to know old folks in the year 2004 would consider it a piece of crap. Today our kids grow up much too fast. A movie like Dondi might be just what the doctor ordered for your kids as opposed to say - a prescription for Ritalin.

Dondi gets a 7.5 from me.

After ruining the long-running comic strip "The Gumps," Gus Edson launched the gooey dreck known as "Dondi" to dozens of newspapers. He or his syndicate persuaded Al Zugsmith, best known for his potboilers with the pneumatic Mamie van Doren, to make this bucket of cinematic treacle.

One wishes Mamie could have appeared, but she had the good sense to stay out of this one - the closest we get is an appearance by a Jayne Mansfield hot water bottle, which displayed much more personality than Patti Page. The "singing rage" warbles several nauseous tunes that make "The Doggie in the Window" sound like "Highway to Hell." And I thought her theme to "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" was bland! And let's not forget David Kory in the title role...but I certainly want to! He yells his lines in the tone of a kid who didn't get sprinkles on his sundae. After watching this overly sentimental excuse for a film, you'll be praying to the porcelain gods! Show this to your kids and they'll ask what they did wrong!

If you want a kids' movie from this era that's actually good, and sweet without being gooey, get a Philip Leacock film like "Hand in Hand" or "The Little Kidnappers."

Incidentally, I met Irwin Hasen, artist of the Dondi comic, at a convention 12 years ago. He was such a nice guy, I hadn't the heart to tell him how much this movie sucked...though I wonder if I DID tell him, he might have agreed?

Saw this picture ages ago. Leonard Maltin hit the nail on the head when he said "Watch this film and you'll know why Janssen became a fugitive"! The comic strip was never very good and this film is ten times worse. If it had even a shred of Sci-Fi in it MST3K could swoop down on it for some laughs but it doesn't. David Janssen did fine work in his career but this is certainly the worst he was ever in.