Francis chez les Wacs

Fifth in the series of Universal Studios' talking mule movies, this entry provides very little that is not predictable since the Francis films, in spite of their scripted absurdity, were calculable successes at the box office and there was scant cause to use innovation. Peter Stirling (Donald O'Connor), is recalled to active Army duty, but when the hapless lieutenant is assigned to a Women's Army Corps (WAC) detachment due to a flawed clerical procedure in the Pentagon, neither he nor his new distaff officer companions are pleased with a nonsensical situation. His WAC superiors believe that Peter has been planted as a scout and is being used to undermine their efforts opposing a men's army unit in an upcoming War Games matchup, and Peter and Francis invent a method to persuade the women that he is not there for clandestine purposes. The quaint pair is capable of attempting this because Peter's proxy specialty is training women soldiers to become camouflage experts and since the Games are going to be focused upon just such activity, the situation is readied for crucial events. The film was completed in Spring of 1954, shot primarily at California's Fort Ord, with numerous WACS assigned there being employed as extras in a film that pleasingly reflects the result of high-quality production values contributed by the Universal management. Arthur Lubin, director of all six of the O'Connor featured Francis films, offers sluggish pacing with this item, largely due to an overly complicated scenario that weighs down the final section dealing with camouflage competition between the military men and women. As with all Francis pictures, a primary interest in this one relates to early performances of well-known actors, including the initial yelps of fear from "Scream Queen" Allison Hayes, and Universal ingénues Mamie Van Doren and Julia Adams, although the best playing is by veteran ZaSu Pitts as an undone Army nurse; clever thematic scoring by Irving Gertz was used years later by the Studio for other releases.

"Francis Joins the WACS" is Donald O'Connor's and Chill Wills' penultimate Francis film. While the studio would make two more films in the series, inexplicably, the final one stars Mickey Rooney and an all new voice for Francis, Paul Frees. Considering the series had seen better days and continuity was simply a mess!

In the first film, "Francis", Pete (Donald O'Connor) is a lieutenant in the Army. Later, in "Francis Goes to West Point", Pete now is attending West Point...which is odd as he already WAS an officer in the Army. To make things more confusing, in the next film, Pete is a reporter and there's no mention of his prior military service...even though West Point graduates owe the military eight years of service! Now in "Francis Joins the WACS", Pete is back in the military...but wow is the plot difficult to believe...even for a Francis the Talking Mule film!

When the story begins, Pete has been reactivated in the Army, and you assume he's in the Army Reserves. But through a bizarre clerical error, he's assigned to a WAC unit (consisting of only women)! And, once more, the military thinks Pete is insane.

Clearly, even for the Francis films, the plot is amazingly tough to believe. In fact, it feels as if the series had long jumped the shark and was breathing on fumes. Amazingly, the next film, which didn't star O'Connor or Chill Wills, was actually very good and breathed a bit of life into the series. Of all the movies, "Francis Joins the WACS" is possibly the weakest and least enjoyable.

Yet another yawnful entry from this series, unfortunately.

The cast are the only thing about 'Francis Joins the WACS' that is worthy of minimal praise. Donald O'Connor is solid again, Julie Adams is OK and Chill Wills' move into the live-action cast (whilst still voicing Francis) is relatively amusing. Still, the problem remains that Francis feels sidelined in these more recent follow-ups.

In fairness, this fourth sequel got one-or-two more minor chuckles out of me - not that that helps raise the film up, as those moments are few and far between amid a myriad of predictability and repetitiveness. You can also imagine the low standard of humour used here, given Stirling joins the Women's Army Corps.

Not the worst 'Francis' film, but that's hardly a plus point. 'Francis in the Navy' is next.

In the fifth installment of the series, Donald O'Connor is ordered back into the Army. He discovers he has been assigned to a WAC unit, and that Francis the Talking Mule is there too.

At this point, to get my summary over with quickly and relatively painlessly, I would write "hijinks ensue" or perhaps "hijinks fail to ensue." Here, I'll leave it to noting that stuff happens, that Chill Wills appears in the flesh as a general, that there are some lovely ladies on hand, including Julie Adams, Mamie Van Doren -- who tried to get out of this movie -- Joan Shawlee, Lynn Bari, and Zasu Pitts, and that Dorothy Davenport Reid is credited with "additional dialogue". I will not speculate as to what lines she penned. Also, Molly, which is the name of the animal who starred as Francis. In common with many gender-bending animal stars, Molly was not a mule, which is a male. Molly was a..... well, I am informed that the term for a female mule is a molly.

It's not that this movie is bad. If your idea of a good movie premise is that there's a talking mule who speaks only to Donald O'Connor, then this is a movie for you. Apparently there were large numbers of people for whom that was the case; as I noted above, this was the fifth in the series, there was another, and director Arthur Lubin later was in charge of Mr. Ed. Neither is this as bad as, say the Old Mother Reilly movies. It's simply not engrossing. It is the sort of movie you could put on the TV while you are vacuuming without missing much of interest to anyone whose intellectual age is older than six, which has included me for some time now.