The Love Bug
The Love Bug (also known as Herbie the Love Bug) is a 1969 American sports adventure comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, based on the story "Car, Boy, Girl" by Gordon Buford. The film is the first installment in the Herbie film series.
This article is about the 1969 Disney film. For the insect, see lovebug. For the 1997 film, see The Love Bug (1997 film). For other uses, see Love Bug.
The film follows the adventures of a sentient Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie, Herbie's driver, Jim Douglas (Dean Jones), and Jim's love interest, Carole Bennett (Michele Lee). It also features Buddy Hackett as Jim's enlightened, kind-hearted friend, Tennessee Steinmetz, a character who creates "art" from used car parts. English actor David Tomlinson portrays the villainous Peter Thorndyke, the owner of an automobile showroom and an SCCA national champion who sells Herbie to Jim and eventually becomes his racing rival.
The Love Bug was followed by Herbie Rides Again (1974).
Production notes[edit]
Story and development[edit]
Dean Jones credited the film's success to the fact that it was the last live-action film produced by Walt Disney Productions under Walt Disney's involvement, released just two years after his death in 1966. Although Jones tried to pitch him a serious, straightforward film project concerning the story of the first sports car ever brought to the United States, Walt suggested a different car story for him, which was "Car, Boy, Girl", a story written in 1961 by Gordon Buford.
Car, Boy, Girl; The Magic Volksy; The Runaway Wagen; Beetlebomb; Wonderbeetle; Bugboom and Thunderbug were among the original development titles considered for the film before the title was finalized as The Love Bug.
Herbie competes in the Monterey Grand Prix, which, except for 1963, was not a sports car race. The actual sports car race held at Monterey was the Monterey Sports Car Championships. The 1968 Monterey Grand Prix was in fact a Can Am Series race and did not feature production cars.
Peter Thorndyke's yellow "Special" is actually a 1965 Apollo GT, a rare sports car sold by International Motorcars of Oakland, California. It used an Italian-built body and chassis from Intermeccanica paired with a small-block Buick V8 engine that was installed in Oakland. This car exists today, is in the hands of a private collector, and has been restored as it was seen in the film with its yellow paint and number 14 logo.[3]
Legacy[edit]
Four theatrical sequels followed: Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Herbie Goes Bananas, and Herbie: Fully Loaded. Some parts of the racing sequences from the film were later reused for Herbie's dream sequence in Herbie Rides Again, responding to Grandma Steinmetz's telling Willoughby Whitfield that Herbie used to be a famous racecar.
A five-episode television series, titled Herbie, the Love Bug, aired on CBS in the United States in 1982. Directed by Vincent McEveety, the series acted as a continuation of the films, with Dean Jones reprising his role as Jim Douglas. In 1997, there was a made-for-television sequel which included a Dean Jones cameo, tying it to the previous films. The most recent sequel, Herbie: Fully Loaded, was released on June 22, 2005, by Walt Disney Pictures.
At Disney's All-Star Movies Resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Herbie has been immortalized in the "Love Bug" buildings 6 and 7.
Home media[edit]
The film was released on VHS on March 4, 1980. It was re-released on November 6, 1985, September 11, 1991, and on October 28, 1994, with Herbie Rides Again. It was soon re-released again on September 16, 1997, along with the entire Herbie the Love Bug film series. It was released on DVD for the first time on May 20, 2003. It was released again with its sequels in a four-movie collection in 2012. A 45th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Disc was released on December 16, 2014, as a Disney Movie Club exclusive title.