Review of The Love Bug (1968) by John B — 25 Sep 2015

Ostensibly a children's movie, the characters are all adults (except maybe for Herbie, who has the personality of a childish yet wise E.T.) This is what I remember children's entertainment being like before the insanely babyish cartoons and infantilism that were to follow.

Jim Douglas is a tragically aging failed racecar driver, who is told and wonders himself if he's in the wrong business. Suddenly he gets his magic bottle in the form of a VW bug who helps him to start winning races. Even though Herbie proves that he is doing the driving even before the track, Douglas clings to the notion that only he is the reason for the success.

The other characters gradually figure it out because they do not have any illusions (the spiritual Tennessee or the self-interested Thorndyke). At the beginning his film has the ethos of Miracle on 34th Street, where the improbable but believable happens, although by the end it goes off into wildly impossible -- yet great fun.

Side notes include the intrusion of late 60s hippie culture into the relatively square world of motorcar racing. Also there seems to be a gentle interjection of social consciousness. Michele Lee looks all the world for a light skinned black woman wearing Jane Fonda-ish pantsuits. Buddy Hackett has been to an ashram. The Chinese Americans could have easily spun into ethnic stereotypes but are surprisingly portrayed as smart, wealthy, and cunning.