À pied, à cheval et en spoutnik!

We are in 1958 , it's the beginnig of the space exploration. Jean-Jacques Vital and Jean Dréville are looking for a sequel of "Ã pie, à cheval et voiture". So they imagine on a side that Léon Martin has a car crash and has amnesiaand that a Russian space capsule has fallen near the house of Léon Martin. Then we have two animal characters the dog and the mouse who escaped from the capsule and arrive at Léon's house. Then begins the real comedy: the ambassador of the Soviet Union wants to recover the mouse and the dog,the French gendarmerie is looking sfor the dog and the mouse,Léon Martin discover that the dog and the mouse have strange behaviour (that are acting like Pavlov's dogs, but he believes that they have been trained in a circus). Then arrives the attache Hubert who tries to negotiate with Léon Martin.

I enjoyed this comedy about space travel. TThe performances of Noël-Noël , Doise Denise Grey, Daryl Cowl and Pauline Carton are very good.

"A Pied ,A Cheval Et En Voiture" was such a success that it spawned a sequel "A Pied A Cheval Et En Spoutnik" ,featuring many of its actors,probably inspired by Laika ,the Russian space dog.

Here is the before mentioned sequel : it's not the same director ,not the same spirit,but it does feature the two principals (Noel- Noel and Denise Grey ) plus some other characters from the first installment (Noel Roquevert,brief appearances by Sophie Daumier and Gil Vidal);on the other hand ,Darry Cowl is featured in both ,but not in the same part.

To put it mildly ,it is a far-fetched story ;the story begins with a car crash, and involves a bout of amnesia, a dog and a mouse fresh from a container dropped from a sputnik (=companion in Russian),whose reflexes are as conditioned as Pavlov's dogs, a shoot-out on a farm,a trip to the USSR where the hero is subject to egregious gaffes ("are there many communists over there?"),and even a space trek: probably inspired by Hergé's celebrated "Objectif/Lune /On A Marché Sur La Lune " (="explorers on the moon") (1953-54) , the screenwriters (including the star) have Monsieur Martin play more or less the part of the Dupondt (= Thompson twins) :from his involuntary departure to the artificial gravity ,it bears more than a distant resemblance to the comic strip classic.

Conclusion: the farther one travels,the less one knows. And there's nothing like a good horse,even a Quatre-Chevaux,this car of yesteryear, is no match for this draft animal.

Entirely filmed in studio ,the special effects may seem ludicrous and cheap today ,but at the time it was not so bad .And the fact that such a cock and bull story's got legs is an achievement in itself.