| The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again | |
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Promotional poster |
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| Directed by | Vincent McEveety |
| Produced by | Tom Leetch Ron W. Miller |
| Written by | Don Tait |
| Starring | Tim Conway Don Knotts Tim Matheson Kenneth Mars Jack Elam |
| Music by | Buddy Baker |
| Cinematography | Frank Phillips |
| Editing by | Gordon Brenner |
| Studio | Walt Disney Productions |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution Co. Inc. |
| Release date(s) | June 27, 1979 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again is a 1979 sequel to the 1975 family film The Apple Dumpling Gang starring the comedy duo of Tim Conway, and Don Knotts. Conway and Knotts reprise their roles as Amos and Theodore. The film also stars Tim Matheson, Harry Morgan, and Kenneth Mars. Laugh-In star Ruth Buzzi appears in a small cameo as a wild farsighted woman. Robert Totten, who directed installments of Gunsmoke, also had a small part in the film.
Amos (Conway) and Theodore (Knotts), the old bank robbers turned good guys, arrive in the "boom town" of Junction City, and cause havoc from the start. The duo – who had promised to go straight after the events of the first film – get into trouble when they are framed for robbery at the town bank. The robbers trick them into depositing their money, and then run off with it. The town's feared lawman, Marshall Wooly Bill Hitchcock (Mars), is determined to capture the gang and punish them for their crime, but when he catches Amos and Theodore at the bank and attempts to arrest them, their guns accidentally go off and hit Wooly Bill in the hands as witnesses look on. The accident not only makes Amos and Theodore the new "quick guns" in the town, but it makes the humiliated lawman even more determined to capture the "Apple Dumpling Gang" (as they are now called, since Theodore advised them not to use their own names in the new town.) Things get worse when their donkey Clarise (who joined them from the first film) shows up with the stolen money when the real bank robbers in a hurry put most of the money on her saddle. As they attempt to return it by swinging it from the roof of the building across from the building, the bags land on Wooly Bill and cause even more injuries to him.
To escape Hitchcock's vengeance, the pair enlist in the US Army, but after further bunglings and a run-in with the martial they accidentally set fire to the fort. As a result of this, the fort commander Major Gaskill (Harry Morgan) loses his job and the Apple Dumplings are court martialled and sent to a military jail. This "jail" however turns out to be a cover for robber baron "Big Mac" (Jack Elam) who recruits Amos and Theodore as hired guns for a train robbery. Still determined to "go straight", the boys try to extricate themselves from the situation by dressing up as bar-room dance girls - a disguise which bizarrely fools even Big Mac himself! In the end, with the help of an army intelligence officer (Tim Matheson) who is posing as an enlisted soldier, and their former commander's daughter Millie (Elyssa Davalos), they foil the robbers and are given pardons.
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