All 4 original "The Beetle" movies are available on Disney +, as is the 2005 film starring Lindsay Lohan, but how could a car with feelings become so popular with audiences? Maybe because it's well written.
Walt disney pictures Recommended from 6 years old. These films are currently available on Disney +
What is the "recipe" for films?
The idea of the saga is that there is a Volkswagen Beetle bearing the number 53 which has a will of its own. She has the appearance of a classic car, she cannot speak, but reacts, understands what is said to her and can even be mischievous or angry. From film to film, she will become attached to characters who really need her and solve their problem in her own way but in a good mood. The car is masculine in the VO (Herbie) and feminine in the French version (Choupette).
Why does it work?
This is mainly due to two things: the quality of the writing and the character of the ladybug. The fact of having a driverless car with emotions offers a multitude of funny situations that the films exploit without ever replacing the plot with a "festival of Choupette", which would be content to be only a succession of gags with the car. The human is always at the center of feature films, with clear and simple issues. This is the result of writing choices which, without pretension, always opt to orient the story to the fact that the car has a big heart and that it helps its neighbor like a guardian angel.
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David Tomlinson (Peter Thorndyke), already seen in Mary Poppins
The key to the success of this franchise is also the fact that the Disney writers did not seek to explain why and how this car ended up endowed with feelings and empathy. The mystery which surrounds it is never touched on and remains in the state of fact, that the protagonists of each feature film take more or less time to accept. Obviously, some seek to exploit this vehicle like no other, and those will always be rolled in flour (or used oil!). Guaranteed efficiency!
Two-horses, four films
The main saga has four films released between 1969 and 1980. Two are carried by actor Dean Jones, famous face of the Disney films of the 60s and 70s, from Four Bassets for a Danish to The Spy with the Velvet Paws. The story of the first installment (Un amour de coccinelle) is simple: a car race is approaching and driver Jim Douglas does not have a car. He buys one at a discount and seeing that she is not able to hold the road, abandons her ... until she makes him understand that she does not agree.
It is interesting to note that this first film has a lot in common with The Phantom of Blackbeard, another Disney film released a year earlier. We find there the purchase of an object that will prove to be more interesting than it seems (a pool / Choupette), a sports competition (athletics / a car race), a fantastic character (a ghost / a living car), a high stakes bet (at the casino / between businessmen), a man chased by a driverless car (a policeman / an antagonist) ... the list goes on. The observation does not stop there since the scenarios are in both cases written by the duo Bill Walsh / Don DaGradi. We also find Dean Jones in the title role, the same director (Robert Stevenson) and the French rehear the same French voices, accentuating all the more the impression of seeing again The Ghost of Blackbeard "packaged" differently.
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The car has just backed up on its own ("Le Nouvel amour de Coccinelle")
Anyway, A ladybug love would be the last film that Walt Disney gave the green light in his lifetime and it is a resounding success for the studio. The film took the lead at the US box office in 1969 with $ 51 million reported on a budget of 4 million, entering the top 10 of the greatest successes in the history of American cinema at the time.
A few years later, a sequel without Dean Jones released: Le Nouvel Amour de Coccinelle (1974), of good quality, recounting the setbacks of a young man who must expel an old lady from her home and discovering that his uncle, who asked to do so, is a real estate schemer. The catastrophic Coccinelle à Monte-Carlo (1978) followed, in which Robert Stevenson and Bill Walsh were no longer there. Even the return of the always likeable Dean Jones isn't enough to save the film from disappointment. The saga ends without him with La Coccinelle à Mexico (1980), a feature film that is less missed than the previous one, in which the car plays notably the toreadors in an arena!
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Buddy Hackett gives Dean Jones an amused look at the wheel of Choupette in "Ladybug Love"
After the movies, the TV!
The franchise will continue on TV with the miniseries Herbie, the Love Bug (1982), which follows on from the second feature film while ignoring Monte Carlo and Mexico. Dean Jones takes over his character, who has a driving school and still the ladybug. The saga then disappears until the TV movie A New Beginning for the Ladybug (1997) carried by Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead (yes, yes) and the unstoppable Dean Jones, all under the leadership of Peyton Reed, future director of Ant-Man.
In the 2000s, the saga marks its big comeback in cinema with La Coccinelle is back. Comedians Lindsay Lohan, Michael Keaton and Matt Dillon offer a new opus that is quite fresh, rhythmic and properly based on the legacy of previous films. The car retains its character traits from the start and has a very pleasant soundtrack. To be reserved, however, for unconditional fans of car n ° 53.
Despite the passage of the years, the gags of the original films have not aged and if all the films are not all of the same quality, the ladybug has marked a generation of young spectators who can now show these family films to their families. children and isn't that ultimately one of the pleasures of cinema?
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