Columnist Geoff Carter: Get bitten by ‘Love Bug’ again

Geoff Carter

Friday, June 20, 2003 | 9:30 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

One of the things I love most about the DVD medium is the way it puts movies in context. The sets loaded with documentaries and the like -- The Criterion Collection discs are the best example -- make films worthy of placement on the bookshelf. With DVD, you can safely file Anthony Hopkins next to Thomas Harris.

But there's another unexpected and wonderful way in which DVDs can provide context. They can take movies whose impact has been lessened with time and restore them to their former glory. Years of studio neglect, commercial-packed late-night showings and bad sequels are forgotten, and the film stands on its own, ready to be judged afresh.

Such is the case with "The Love Bug" (Disney DVD, $29.99), a silly film about an anthropomorphized Volkswagen Bug named Herbie that -- despite fierce competition from the likes of "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Planet of the Apes" and "Rosemary's Baby" -- ended up the top-grossing film of 1968.

As spake Keanu, "Whoa."

It's not in the same class as those films (well, maybe "Rosemary's Baby"), but "The Love Bug" is a lot better than I remembered it. In fact, all I really remembered of "The Love Bug" was its eponymous star: a 1963 pearl-white Volkswagen Beetle with a ragtop sunroof, red-and-blue performance striping and the number 53 on its hood and doors. Everything else I remembered -- Don Knotts, the Bug's fight against the Sandinistas -- was from the movie's three sequels, it turns out.

"The Love Bug" follows the fortunes of race driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones), whose skills have landed him in demolition derbies, Tennessee Steinmetz (Buddy Hackett), a goofball artist studied in Eastern Mysticism, Carole (Michelle Lee), a comely mechanic, and Thorndyke (David Tomlinson), a unscrupulous car salesman and mustache-twirling bad guy.

The Bug, nicknamed "Herbie" by its owners, is essentially a big puppy; it falls for Jim when he stops Thorndyke from abusing it, and follows him home. Jim begins racing Herbie in a series of dirt-track rallies, and winning, much to Thorndyke's chagrin. Dirty tricks are played, hearts are broken, and through it all, Buddy Hackett makes faces I didn't think human beings were capable of making.

It's funny without being crass (nary a flatulence joke to be had), is earnestly acted and directed, and it looks terrific. The San Francisco setting is used to good effect, and even the '60s fashions look stylish again. It's little wonder that Volkswagen sold scores of Beetles in the wake of "Love Bug."

The two-disc DVD set is full of love. Original cast members Jones, Lee and Hackett are interviewed, crew members and Herbie historians (there's an awful lot of them) volunteer fascinating bits of trivia, and an image gallery is packed to overflowing with poster art, production documents and even a Sunday comic strip.

Even some Criterion discs don't offer these kind of riches, this kind of context. It's a loving, warm tribute, and Herbie deserves every bit of it. He's a good car, after all.