Un candidat au poil

Attorney Wilby Daniels (played by Dean Jones) and his wife Betty (played by Suzanne Pleshette) return to their home and find out that it has just been robbed. After the robbers return a second time to take everything else that they had left, Wilby decides to run for District Attorney so he can clean up the town and lock up the criminals for good.

Meanwhile, the same robbers who broke into his house have also stolen the famous Borgia ring from the local museum. Unfortunately for Wilby, every time someone reads the inscription, he turns into a sheepdog again. This of course, happens at the most inconvenient times, and the result is a silly, family-friendly comedy.

The Shaggy D.A. is a sequel to the 1959 Disney film, the Shaggy Dog. Though it's not quite as funny as the original, there still is a lot to like about this version of the story. The acting is pretty much on par with what we've come to expect from these Disney films, and the characters are pretty interesting, even if they are one-dimensional. The transformation from human to dog doesn't seem to work as well here as it did in the 1959 film, for some reason, but it's fine. If I had a complaint about this movie, it's that it goes a bit long and the same gags are used a few times too many. Other than that, it's nice to find a film that doesn't resort to 7th grade humor that seems to be in every "family" film these days.

The bottom line is this is a decent movie if you'd like to have a good time with the kids, but adults will be a bit bored from it fairly soon. It's not as good as some of the other Disney comedies from the 1960s and 1970s.

Typical Disney 70's fare with the usual cast (Jones, Conway, Wynn) associated with the studio at the time, here focusing on the kid from the original "Shaggy Dog" 1959 movie, all grown up (Jones) and still having issues with his canine transformations. Crooked senator Wynn is determined to get his hands on the magic ring that will enable the metamorphosis, but predictably, the old dog has a few new tricks up his sleeve to counter every attempt.

Conway plays the ice-cream vendor caught up in the calamities, Vic Tayback as a racketeer in cahoots with Wynn, and Dick Van Patten has a minor role as Wynn's chauffeur. The sultry Suzanne Pleshette plays Jones' domestic retreat, despite having little to offer the film, still adds a much needed spark.

No surprises, it's inoffensive (a bit of gun-play, but no actual violence) slapstick comedy that would appeal to the young family audience.

I guess that when Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette got married it wasn't spelled out that there would be no secrets because Dean Jones kept a really big one from his teen years. For what that was and how it turned out one should see the prequel to The Shaggy DA, the famous Walt Disney classic, The Shaggy Dog.

To refresh one's memory back then the Dean Jones character of Wilby Daniels was played by Tommy Kirk who because of a cursed ring said to belong to Lucretia Borgia back in the day who allegedly dabbled in the black arts, Kirk would enter the body of a large sheep dog who was owned by the new next door neighbors of his family. When the ring got returned and Kirk performed a heroic act, the curse was lifted.

Or so they thought, now Wilby Daniels is played by Dean Jones who now is a lawyer, running for District Attorney against corrupt DA Keenan Wynn and married to Suzanne Pleshette with a son, Shane Sinutko. Just as the campaign gets going the ring is once again stolen from the museum and when the magic words inscribed on the ring are uttered, Jones is shifting from human to canine and back.

Eventually chief villain Keenan Wynn gets the ring and he's in control of the situation when he discovers what it does to Jones. It becomes a family project to get that ring back and expose him before the electorate. Also along for the ride is Tim Conway, an ice cream truck vendor whose shaggy dog's body Jones transfers to.

The Shaggy DA has a lot of laughs in it and its good entertainment, it doesn't however have the poignancy of the teen angst that Tommy Kirk brought to the original Wilby. It does have the usual cast of Hollywood veterans that the Disney studio always managed to find work for. It's one of the reasons the Magic Kingdom films from the late Sixties and Seventies are a lot of fun, it's like watching some of the classic films from the studio system days, seeing all those familiar faces.

I'd still recommend the film, especially to family audiences with younger viewers, but it's not as good as the original.

Dean Jones and Tim Conway make this the most thrilling and hilarious Shaggy Dog movie of all time. Some of it is a bit wacky, but not ridiculous and that just adds to the fun and humor. It's not exactly a direct sequel to the original 1959 Shaggy Dog, but that doesn't hurt it at all. Personally I find the original one to be rather boring, frustrating, and confusing, but this movie is all out fun. Some parts are so funny that I couldn't stop laughing. I haven't seen any of the latter Shaggy Dog movies except for the new one with Tim Allen, which is OK, but not as good as this one, I can't see any Shaggy Dog movie being better than this.

Just kidding (As if anyone could not figure out-- whether they've seen the movie or not-- how it will turn out).

Like one of the other people who commented above, I was a kid (6) when this movie came out, and for some reason this is one of the movies that sticks in my mind along with Gus, Boatniks, and the '66 Batman, when I think back on the movies I saw at that age. So Shaggy DA has a built-in nostalgia factor as far as I'm concerned, and maybe for others my age, but anyone else would probably be bored to tears. The pie-fight had a little spark of energy, but watching this now mainly just serves to remind what low standards "family entertainment" had in the 70s. It's really amazing, today, to look back on this kind of stuff-- Shaggy DA, Pete's Dragon, that "Goin Cocoanuts" thing the Osmonds put out-- and think: Good Lord, was that really the best they could do?