The Love Bug


The Love Bug is a 1968 American sports adventure comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, based on the story "Car, Boy, Girl" by Gordon Buford. It is the first installment in the Herbie film series.
The film follows the adventures of a sentient Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie, Herbie's driver, Jim Douglas, and Jim's love interest, mechanic Carole Bennett. It also features Buddy Hackett as Jim's enlightened, kind-hearted friend, Tennessee Steinmetz, who creates "art" from used car parts. English actor David Tomlinson portrays the villainous Peter Thorndyke, the owner of an automobile showroom and an SCCA national champion who sells Herbie to Jim and eventually becomes his racing rival.
The Love Bug was originally given a limited release on December 24, 1968, and was later widely released on March 13, 1969 by Walt Disney Productions. It received positive reviews from critics, and received $51.2 million against a budget of $5 million. The film was followed by a sequel titled Herbie Rides Again.

Plot

Jim Douglas, once a prominent race car driver, is now relegated to participating in demolition derbies. Residing in a converted firehouse overlooking San Francisco Bay, Jim lives with his friend Tennessee Steinmetz, an eccentric mechanic and sculptor whose artistic creations repurpose discarded automobile components.
Jim’s fortunes shift when he visits a European car dealership, where he encounters Carole Bennett, a mechanic and sales associate, as well as Peter Thorndyke, the British proprietor of the establishment. During this visit, Jim notices a peculiar Volkswagen Beetle—a vehicle Thorndyke openly abuses after it is returned to the showroom under mysterious circumstances. Lacking the financial means to procure a vehicle, Jim departs, only to find that the Beetle follows him home. This leads to a police intervention on charges of grand theft, forcing Jim to reluctantly agree to a lease-purchase arrangement for the car.
Initially, Jim is frustrated with the Beetle, whose idiosyncratic behaviour includes avoiding highways and orchestrating encounters with Carole, suspecting Thorndyke of duping him with a malfunctioning vehicle. Tennessee discerns that the car possesses sentience although Jim sceptically dismisses Tennessee's claims. Endearing himself to the Beetle, Tennessee christens the car "Herbie".
Jim decides to enter Herbie into racing, giving the car racing stripes and adding the number '53'. In their debut race, Herbie delivers an unexpected victory, much to Thorndyke's dismay and Carole's delight. Competing directly with Thorndyke at Riverside, Herbie scores another impressive victory, with Jim, Tennessee, and Herbie becoming the talk of the California racing circuit, while Thorndyke suffers increasingly humiliating defeats. Desperate to discover the secret of Herbie's success, Thorndyke, on the eve of another important race, convinces Carole to take Jim for a ride in the best car in the showroom, then sneaks into his rival's house, gets Tennessee drunk on his own Irish coffee, and sabotages Herbie's performance in the race by pouring it into Herbie's gas tank. Disillusioned, Jim decides to replace Herbie with a new Lamborghini, a decision that alienates Carole who had just quit her promising job alongside Thorndyke, and Tennessee.
Feeling betrayed, Herbie reacts by vandalizing the Lamborghini and fleeing. After narrowly escaping being torn apart in Thorndyke's workshop, his escapades culminate in an attempt to throw himself from the Golden Gate Bridge, prompting Jim to intervene. At the police station, Tang Wu, a racing enthusiast and local businessman whose property Herbie also damaged, agrees to an offer from Jim to drop charges in exchange for ownership of Herbie on condition that Jim and Tennessee may race Herbie in the prestigious El Dorado Road race, with the agreement that if Jim wins the race, Mr. Wu will sell Herbie back to him for one dollar.
The El Dorado race, a two-day event traversing the Sierra Nevada, becomes the stage for Thorndyke's underhanded tactics. Despite these obstacles, Jim, Carole, and Tennessee persevere, although the first leg of the race leaves Herbie in a battered state, limping across the finish line using a makeshift wagon wheel. Overnight, Herbie refuses to start, and Jim admits to Mr. Wu that Herbie is in no condition to continue the race. Thorndyke suddenly appears, revealing that he made a separate bet with Mr. Wu that should Herbie drop out of the race, Thorndyke would take possession of Herbie and have him crushed. After Thorndyke assaults Jim, Herbie restarts, chasing Thorndyke away.
On the second leg, Herbie overcomes numerous challenges to close the gap on Thorndyke and take the lead heading into the final stages of the race. As they near the finish line, Herbie splits in two due to mechanical strain, his rear half, carrying Tennessee and the engine, crossing the finish line first, while his front half, with Jim and Carole aboard, follows closely, securing both first and third place.
Wu assumes control of Thorndyke's dealership, appoints Tennessee as his assistant, and relegates Thorndyke to the mechanics' workshop alongside his accomplice Havershaw. Rebuilt, Herbie serves as the wedding vehicle for Jim and Carole's departure, whisking the newlyweds away on their honeymoon.

Cast

Story and development

credited the film's success to the fact that it was the last live-action film produced by Walt Disney Productions under Walt Disney's involvement, released just two years after his death in 1966. Although Jones tried to pitch him a serious, straightforward film project concerning the story of the first sports car ever brought to the United States, Walt suggested a different car story for him, which was "Car, Boy, Girl", a story written in 1961 by Gordon Buford.
Car, Boy, Girl; ''The Magic Volksy; The Runaway Wagen; Beetlebomb; Wonderbeetle; Bugboom and Thunderbug were among the original development titles considered for the film before the title was finalized as The Love Bug.''
Herbie competes in the Monterey Grand Prix, which, except for 1963, was not a sports car race. The actual sports car race held at Monterey was the Monterey Sports Car Championships. The 1968 Monterey Grand Prix was in fact a Can Am Series race and did not feature production cars.
Peter Thorndyke's yellow "Special" is actually a 1965 Apollo GT, a rare sports car sold by International Motorcars of Oakland, California. It used an Italian-built body and chassis from Intermeccanica paired with a small-block Buick V8 engine that was installed in Oakland. This car exists today, is in the hands of a private collector, and has been restored as it was seen in the film with its yellow paint and number 14 logo.

"Herbie"

Before the film entered production, the titular car was not specified as a Volkswagen Beetle, and Disney set up a casting call for a dozen cars to audition. In the lineup, there were a few Toyotas, a TVR, a handful of Volvos, an MG and a pearl white Volkswagen Beetle. The Volkswagen Beetle was chosen as it was the only one that elicited the crew to reach out and pet it.
The Volkswagen brand name, logo or shield does not feature anywhere in the film, as the automaker did not permit Disney to use the name. The only logos can be briefly seen in at least two places, however. The first instance is on the brake pedals during the first scene where Herbie takes control with Jim inside, and it is shown in all the future scenes when Jim is braking. The second instance is on the ignition key, when Jim tries to shut down the braking Herbie. The subsequent films, however, do promote the Volkswagen name. The VW "Wolfsburg" castle emblem on the steering wheel hub is also seen throughout the car's interior shots. Within the script, the car was only ever referred to as "Herbie", "the little car" or "the Bug"—the latter, although a common nickname for the Beetle, was not trademarked by Volkswagen at the time of filming. Volkswagen was nervous of many of the scenes that showed Herbie apparently falling apart or malfunctioning - and thus carefully scrutinized the script of the film ensuring that it did not show the car in a negative light - allegedly sending teams of lawyers to the Disney studios on a regular basis to oversee the production.
The car was later given the name "Herbie" from one of Buddy Hackett's skits about a ski instructor named Klaus, who speaks with a German accent as he introduces his fellow ski instructors, who are named Hans, Fritz, Wilhelm, and Sandor. At the end of the skit, Hackett would say "If you ain't got a Herbie, I ain't going."
Herbie's trademark "53" racing number was chosen by producer Bill Walsh, who was a fan of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Don Drysdale.
Walsh also gave Herbie his trademark red, white and blue racing stripes presumably for the more patriotic color and came up with the film's gags such as Herbie squirting oil and opening the doors by himself.
Benson Fong, who played Mr. Wu, said that when he and the others were dragged along the dirt by Herbie, it was like being pulled by 40 horses. The 1961–1965 Volkswagen Beetles actually were rated by the SAE at in factory configuration.
Herbie has his own cast billing in the closing credits, the only time this was done in the entire series of films.
Today, only a handful of the original Herbie cars are known to exist. Car #10 was recovered from a warehouse in Pennsylvania and has been preserved—still sporting its original paint from the film.