Into the Jaws of Heck

Follow Me, Boys! Walt Disney, who sometimes likes to represent America as a giant niceberg floating in an ocean of nostalgia, has now represented the model American male as a simpering scoutmaster.

The scoutmaster is portrayed by Fred MacMurray, whose numerous Disney movies (The Absent-Minded Professor and four others) have made him the studio's most popular character since Mickey Mouse. Fred presents the hero as the sort of six-foot sissy who plays with little kids because he's scared of the bigger boys, and who helps little old ladies across the street because he doesn't dare offer his arm to a slick chick. No real boy, of course, would accept such an unmitigated gnerd as his leader, but the producers assemble about 20 Hollywood children, fresh from Disney's patented freckle dip, who act as if they would follow Fred into the jaws of heck.

Before he can say Baden-Powell, Scoutmaster MacMurray becomes a leading citizen of the small town that Producer Disney constructed long ago on the back lot of his studio--that typical Midwestern town where the California sun is so hot that the lawns need a fresh coat of green paint every day. He gets a job in the general store and marries the prettiest girl in town (Vera Miles). Unfortunately, Fred and Vera don't have children--possibly because Fred goes trotting off on so many overnight hikes--but they do perform a numbing number of good deeds. All this, says the hero, is "the happiest life a man could have." Maybe so, but Follow Me, Boys! will not persuade many men to follow Fred into scouting. It is more likely to restore public faith in juvenile delinquency.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.