Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Other than a chimpanzee suit, Roddy McDowall had few chances to be a leafing actor, that part of his career having ended in his late teens/early twenties. Disney took a chance by casting him as the title character in this amusing, but not often really finny, adventure comedy. He's the butler to a broke Boston family who is lost when he sets out to find the rub- away grandson of his recently deceased employer. Gorgeous Suzanne Pleshette is an eyeful as the sultry heiress to a fortune that no longer exists, and I really wanted to see more of her. McDowall gets tied up with con-artists Richard Hayden and Karl Malden, the later a clever crook who continuously fleeces McDowall. There are individual moments of amusement, but overall, I found this to be ultra dry and extra dull. The unbelievable subplot of huge Mike Mazurki setting up a fight with wimpy looking McDowall (thanks to unscrupulous Harry Guardino) is absurd realistically although the fight sequence has a few funny moments. Mainly, it's mostly cartoonish.A ton of veterans do their best to brighten up the other experience, but they are defeated by a story that just didn't grab me even with that cast. A fight scene between McDowall and Pleshette proves what an able comic she was. Disney over the period of 1960's and 1970's gave Disney many generic and oddly filmed family movies, and this ranks as simply second rate.

After a really interesting start with the reading of a will, (and a portrait oil painting which amusingly changes it's countenance during each revealing cut-away) this standard Disney family comedy drags a little before a reasonably amusing boxing match at the end between 'Bullwhip' and 'The Ox', but overall this is very disappointing. There's some nice illustrated animated 'bookends' which divide up segments of the film with music (similar idea to 'Cat Ballou') but it's nowhere near in the same league as that film. It's a shame as I was expecting this film to be a lot better. Bizarrely, one of the main characters disappears a third of the way into the film and then turns up again near the end. Feels slightly disjointed. The acting is quite good and Roddy McDowall was perfectly cast. I like the way in which the 'Ox' character throws people through the air in a ridiculously exaggerated manner – which is reasonably slapstick funny and actually quite cleverly done. There are some nice typical 'Disney-fied' matte painted wide scenes.

Playing the title role of Bullwhip Griffin is Roddy McDowell, a gentleman's gentleman and guardian to heirs Bryan Russell and Suzanne Pleshette from Boston. It seems as though their father has died and the family fortune isn't quite what they've been led to believe. Never mind that, young Russell has lived on an intellectual diet of dime novels and is convinced that he can go to California and strike it rich with the Gold Rush.The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin has a Mark Twain feel to it and it's not too bad, I think Mr. Clemens might have approved of it in his younger and less cynical days. The chief villain of the piece is Karl Malden playing a confidence man who goes by the name of 'Judge' Griffin. He's a man full of tricks, he's a lot like the 'king' and 'duke' characters from Huckleberry Finn. Twain would have really relished Malden's performance.As for Roddy McDowall he's as innocent as those Americans going abroad for the first time as tourists in Innocents Abroad. In point of fact San Francisco and the gold fields of California were a whole continent away and might as well been a foreign country. In fact McDowall would have been more at home in London than in San Francisco had he gone east instead of west.But this is America and it's the land of no titled classes. McDowall dares dream he too could win the hand of Suzanne Pleshette who has shaken her proper eastern upbringing to sing in Harry Guardino's Barbary Coast saloon. Guardino is another villain playing his part with relish, he's interested in Pleshette for more than her singing career.Highlight of the film is McDowall taking on Mike Mazurki in a prize fight. Only in the movies would you think that McDowall could beat Mazurki in a fight. Still it's a very funny sequence.The cast looks like they're having a real good time making this film and the enthusiasm is infectious. The Adventures Of Bullwhip Griffin is one of the better products to come from the Magic Kingdom in the Sixties.

This is another fondly remembered Walt Disney live-action effort which I'd never watched: it's an episodic Western spoof set at the time of the California gold rush. The protagonists are an impoverished Bostonian family and their resourceful butler (an ideally-cast Roddy McDowall); the young son, obsessed with a legendary rugged cowboy figure called "Bullwhip", is prone to tall tales – so that he makes up the mild-mannered Griffin to be as brave and experienced as his hero!This eventually lands them in trouble with both con-man Karl Malden (who has a lot of fun with his role, which also allows him to don plenty of disguises) and saloon owner Harry Guardino or, more precisely, his imposing but dumb henchman (a typecast Mike Mazurki) – whom McDowall fells with a lucky punch but which Guardino wants to turn to his advantage by organizing a boxing match between the two! The bout is delayed until the climax: in between, our heroes have several adventures as they make and lose a fortune in gold (following a map possessed by Richard Haydn who's constantly flaunting his theatrical background), with the wily Malden never too far off their trail. Suzanne Pleshette provides feminine interest and eye candy, though she doesn't quite cut it as a saloon chanteuse.The film is a generous 110 minutes long (compounded by those relentless Sherman Brothers songs) but it's never less than enjoyable, with pleasant color photography and a barrage of technical gags (not just the animated titles but such oft-used devices as the subject of a portrait changing his expression, angels sounding their trumpets when someone is knocked-out, etc).