Raiders Of The Thrift Store: The Boatniks

While wandering through the local Salvation Army store on a quest to find some out-of-print quest items, I happened upon a VHS copy of the 1970 Disney film "The Boatniks.  This is exactly the type of item that we look for in these places.  A long forgotten film that is not easily obtainable (without paying full price through Ebay or Amazon.com).  This one fit the bill perfectly enough to get this new series of posts off to a good start.

The tape sat on my shelf for a couple of weeks until I recently had the time to sit down and take another look at it.  So, this past New Year's Eve morning, I did just that.

Popping open the classic Walt Disney Home Video clamshell case was like taking a time warp back to my days of renting from the local Movie Gallery.  (Read my reminiscence on those days, HERE.)  There was Sorcerer Mickey, on the case and the tape label to greet me like an old friend that I hadn't visited in years.

I fired up the VCR for the first time in what felt like an eternity.  Satisfied that it wasn't going to eat my newly acquired tape, I ran through the blank tape leader in fast forward scan.  Just as I remember, there was the 1980's Walt Disney Home Video intro...Neon outline Mickey in all his full glory...complete with fanfare.



The film began, just as quickly as the intro had ended.  No Cinderella Castle-ified Walt Disney Picures logo for us back in those days...just straight into the movie, no bullshit.

So, there I am, listening to the opening theme song, appropriately..."The Boatniks."  This is definitely NOT a Richard and Robert Sherman tune.  'The Boys' had nada to do with this howler.  I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into, when the credits ended and the story began in earnest.

My low expectations were actually exceeded.  I vaguely remember having seen the film, many years ago...but never would have remembered anything about it.  But, somehow, the film roped me in (at least for the first 45 minutes).  Sure, it is cheesy and most definitely late 60's era nostalgia, but it had a fun loving and not terribly serious quality to it.  It was the kind of film that the Disney studios were known for making at the time.

The introduction to the main characters is fun, and you quickly realize just how prudish our sensibilities have become in contrast.  Within the first two minutes, there is a Coast Guard officer answering a distress call from a boat full of drunkards.  Knowing they are drunk, he asks if they have any beer near their compass and any more on board.  The response made me do a double take...

"Yes, we're loaded."

W-O-W...A G rated feature making reference to being loaded.  There are many moments such as this, throughout.  A particularly memorable one, involves a boat that never leaves its dock position. This is because the owner (who always has a martini in his hand AND is constanly bringing in scantily bikini clad strippers from the local strip club) removed the engine and had it replaced with a wine cellar.

The story of the film revolves primarily around the new Coast Guard Ensign (Robert Morse) assigned to a particularly troublesome party marina.  He becomes entangled in the getaway attempts of a gang of aging, bumbling jewel thieves.  Along the way, he falls for a sailing instructor (Stephanie Powers).  Mayhem ensues.

The film is innocuous enough (except for the aforementioned issues above), but at 99 minutes it is still on the long side.  The first half of the film plays kind of like a Sgt. Bilko episode (which makes sense, since Phil Silvers plays the leader of the jewel thieves.)  Unfortunately, this comes to an end as the jokes run out of steam far before the film hits its halfway point.  I even found myself watching the back half of the film on forward scan.  Like any other Disney film of the era, you won't need the dialogue to follow the story.

In terms of nostalgia, in addition to the cassette case, labels, and intro, the film itself looks like other 60's to 70's Disney films.  Liberal use of the green screen and rear projection abounds.  However, as distracting as that looks nowadays, it helps the film's appeal somewhat.  Of course, maybe that's just me pining for the old days.  Make no mistake, to get the full effect of this experience, you have to follow one very specific rule for this category of posts...

All thrift store quest items must be viewed in the format in which they are found (VHS tape, LaserDisc, Select-a-vision Video Disc, Betamax, Super 8, etc), no matter how bad the quality is.  This makes the same case that audiophiles will make for vinyl records; some things don't sound right in perfect clarity.  Trust me, "The Boatniks" would be nearly unwatchable in Blu-Ray.  You would spend more time picking the whole thing apart and the whole point of re-discovering these films would be lost.

My favorite part of the entire experience, was what took place after the film itself was over. As with all of the Walt Disney Home Video releases of this type, we get the obligatory advertisement for other titles.  

Those of us who grew up watching these films over and over will remember it well.  It's all clips set to a song (which probably has a title, somewhere), which we will just call "Walt Disney and You."  This was a fantastic marketing strategy and without it, I may never have seen classics like "The Gnome-Mobile," or "Darby O'Gill and the Little People."



So there you have it, our first thrift store induced time warp.  We're going to be bringing you more of these as we venture out into the (sometimes scary) world of the thrift store.  As a reminder, we want to hear what treasures you've found.  Dazzle us...and you may be invited to a roundtable podcast discussion about it.

Happy Raiding!

"Lesson Number Three. Always Trust Centauri."