The Shaggy D.A.

Some of Stevenson's Disney entertainments have been very polished and respectable, but not this mess. The sieve-like script tries to mix together Dean Jones' would-be district attorney turning into a lolloping dog (not once but repeatedly), some satire of electioneering and crooked politics, a slap-up pie fight, jokes about Dean Martin and Sarah Bernhardt, satire of ladies' clubs and other small-town Americana, police cars skidding on ice-cream fillings, dogs who talk with Bogart and Cagney voices. Nothing jells at all - least of all the central conceit of the hero becoming shaggy (sometimes the dog's a dog, sometimes a man with fur). It's also not much fun seeing Jones, Pleshette and Wynn getting older and older, staler and staler, playing the parts they've been stuck with for years.