La souris sur la lune

Few people are even aware that "Richard Lester" (as he was then billed) made this sequel to 'The Mouse That Roared" (his first film in colour) between his two pop quickies 'It's Trad, Dad!' and 'A Hard Day's Night'.

Scripted with his usual good-natured cynicism by Michael Pertwee, there are shafts of genial satire, like the description of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick in the opening narration as "the smallest and least progressive country in the entire world" and the use in the space race of former Nazis by both the Russians and Uncle Sam.

David Kossoff returns from the original; while the three roles played in the original by Peter Sellers are here split between Margaret Rutherford (who gets top billing), Ron Moody and Bernard Cribbins; with June Ritchie a fetching young beatnik.

It's hard for it not to pale in comparison to its predecessor, "The Mouse That Roared," but "The Mouse on the Moon" is still an amiable enough comedy that it overcomes its own slightness and miniscule budget. The plot -- which concerns the Duchy of Grand Fenwick petitioning the United States for a loan so that it can develop a space program (which is really a cover for the prime minister's insatiable desire for indoor plumbing) -- is amusing and gives director Richard Lester and screenwriter Michael Pertwee plenty of opportunities to draw parallels between the Americans and the Russians as they scramble to beat the tiny country to the moon.

Instead of Peter Sellers in three roles, we have Margaret Rutherford taking over one (as the dotty grand duchess) and Ron Moody taking over another (as the ruthless prime minister). Both are funny enough, but they're no substitute for the real thing. Joining them are a young Bernard Cribbens as Moody's son Vincent, who wants nothing more than to be an astronaut, David Kossoff (one of four actors returning from "The Mouse That Roared") as the ever resourceful Professor Kokintz, and Terry-Thomas as a thoroughly inept British spy. Also watch for John Bluthal in his first of many films for Lester as Von Noldol, the enthusiastic German scientist working for the U.S.

For Richard Lester fans, this is a must-see. After all, this is the film that got him the job directing a certain film starring four lads from Liverpool...

The two "Mouse" films benefitted greatly from the wonderfully funny source novels by terribly under-appreciated Irish author Leonard Wibberley. Although the second film suffers in comparison because of the loss of star Peter Sellers, the performances by Ron Moody as Count Mountjoy and Dame Margaret Rutherford are still quite effective. It must be pointed out that some of the higher bits of satire of Wibberley's novel have gone missing from the film. In the novel, the Duchess (a 23-year-old married to Chief Forester Tully Bascomb) asks Count Mountjoy (she has called him "Bobo" since infancy) for an Imperial Russian sable fur coat. Mountjoy, desiring to update the Grand Fenwick castle's 14th century plumbing, gets a decree passed asking for a loan from the United States for $50,000 for the coat. Being the sly fox that he is, he also asks for $5 million to enter the SPACE PROGRAM! Of course, Mountjoy has every intension of buying the Duchess her coat and using the rest on the plumbing (and also for road improvements, as there are no paved roads in the country). The USA realizes that it's a ruse of some sort, but sees it as an excellent PR opportunity and decides to give them $50 million instead! The rest of the plot is pretty much directly translated into the film. Too bad Wibberley's remaining books in the series ("The Mouse on Wall Street," "The Mouse That Saved the West," and "Beware the Mouse!") were never filmed.

If you have not yet seen either 'Mouse' film, it is probably better to see this one first, rather than view it with expectations raised by the other one.

It is easy to forget that this film was made before there had been any moon landings; plot points such as dust on the moon were real concerns for the Apollo astronauts when they landed for real, some years later. The planting of a flag (although not the first seen on film of course) was either prescient or life imitated art later on...?

Oddly enough both the look of the moon and the look of the rocket's interior are strongly reminiscent of those seen in the Wallace and Gromit animation 'a grand day out', which must surely have been inspired by the 'Mouse' film.

This film does appear on UK TV from time to time; for example on the Sony Movie Classic channel. However this raises my main disappointment concerning this film; the Sony 'watermark' is huge and obtrusive as usual, but the conversion from Celluloid to PAL video which they broadcast is almost an object lesson in 'how not to do it'; goodness knows what they did (possibly started with a bad print, converted badly to NSTC and then badly to PAL?) but the result is fuzzy, jerky in places, with poor/unsynchronized sound quality. The net result is pretty execrable; in places I'd describe it as 'almost unwatchable' in fact. This isn't the best film ever but my enjoyment of it was seriously impaired by the rotten quality of the broadcast video. I can only suppose (and hope) that commercial DVDs are better than that; they surely can't be worse...?

Six out of ten from me; might have been more but for the rotten video quality.

The DVD box claims that this mild comedy is 'hilarious' are somewhat inflated. Okay, the box copy on any comedy tends to exaggerate its hilarity, so we won't hold such hyperbole too strongly against it. That said, this modest sequel to The Mouse That Roared manages to entertain as what it is: a low key family comedy of moderate charms.

The idiot locals of the tiny and pastoral Grand Duchy of Fenwick return, this time with a scam to get Uncle Sugar to pay to restore the place's ancient plumbing by way of a 'technology loan'. Wink, wink. When U.S. inspectors arrive to view the results of Fenwick's space program, the locals scramble to keep them off-balance while enlisting the aid of an eccentric old professor to build them a REAL moon rocket. And it just so happens he has been working on that very thing.

There are the usual farcical runnings around and the presence of the quirky Terry-Thomas is always welcome in this sort of exercise, but the whole thing is less clever and less fun than the original or the many Ealing Studios caper movies from which it clearly draws inspiration. The look is good, the characters all have their modest individual charms and everything turns out nifty in the end, aww, but don't expect anything overly inspired. There isn't a lot of real cinematic cleverness here, just good, competent old-fashioned movie entertainment. As that it works just fine. Enjoy.