Sometimes sloppy sentimentality can have a strange kind of appeal; case in point: Follow Me, Boys! There's hardly a moment on the screen that isn't filled with the kind of overt heart-tugging corn that Disney made its live-action stock-in-trade for a number of years. Added on to the corn is a thick layer of syrupy sweetness that's practically palpable. Anyone with even a slight understanding of cinematic structure can predict with deadly accuracy where the film is headed from moment to moment, and the character clichés are so abundant as to be stifling. Yet, as obvious and manipulative as all this is, Boys somehow works. Director Norman Tokar and screenwriter Louis Pelletier seem to honestly believe in their material, and that sincerity shows up onscreen. They are helped enormously by their cast, starting with Fred MacMurray's solid performance that anchors the film as well as strong support from Vera Miles and Kurt Russell, and an especially pleasing turn from Lillian Gish. At 135 minutes, the film is clearly too long, the schmaltz factor causes it to start curdling well before the end, and modern audiences especially may find its naïveté laughable. But Boys does back a certain kind of strange punch among all it, albeit artificiality.