La souris sur la lune

There could do with some watching of films such as this in high offices in the US or indeed, in many other "world powers".

Pragmatism and a certain amount of humility might be learnt by those watching and a realisation that acts of domination aren't necessarily a good thing nor will they end in their intended way; are the basic premise of this film.

What it lacks in subtle finesse, it makes up for in it's universal humour and it's now poignant reminder that we can all be fools when we think first of ourselves and only later of the consequences for others.

A film made in 1963, more than 40 years old, still has a message for us today, a message that it seems many need reminding of.

Splendid farce and superb comedy moments and a jolly gripping tale to boot.

I'll drink champagne to that!

Fun film with amusing screenplay by Michael Pertwee based on the novel written by Leonard Wibberley , being well directed by Richard Lester . This is a sequel to ¨The mouse that roared¨(1959), while this second part deals with the tiny country has a hot water problem in the castle , to resolve it , there're attempting a peculiar solution. The tiny Duchy of Grand Fenwick ruled by Grand Duchess Gloriana XIII (Margaret Rutherford) and Prime Minister Rupert Mountjoy (Ron Moody) decide to carry out a set-up , but they really just want some money for new plumbing , and they accept a generous aid From Americans and URSS, but things don't go according to plan . As the the tiny , impoverished backward nation persuades the Americans and Soviets that they're starting a space program. The U. S. and Soviets get wind of the impending launch and try to beat them to the moon . As Vincent Mountjoy (Bernard Cribbins) and Professor Kokintz (David Kossoff) take off in a rocket to the moon. The Hilarious Story of How the Duchy of Grand Fenwick , a tiny European nation devises a foolproof method of filling its depleted treasury and winning , but collects reparations from generous Americans . You'll roar at the further adventures of "The Mouse That Roared". Territorial claims to the Moon by the Grand Duchy of Fenwick can be substantiated by viewing the hilarious motion picture Mouse on the moon . It's A Blast.....Off!. When A Tiny Nation Of Nuts Goes Into The Rocket Racket! It's The Raciest Race To The Moon That Ever Knocked You Out For The Count...Down!. Stop shooting at our moon!.

This is a funny and entertaining comedy with a great Brit cast , such as Margaret Rutherford , Ron Moody , Bernard Cribbins , David Kossoff , Terry-Thomas , all of them playing sympathetic characters . It's a pretty amusing farce with these masters of the interpretation who display efficiently their abilities. Shot in medium budget by using some sets , props and atrezzo leftover from other films . Picture is a vehicle of these stunning actors , they are authentic comical players and real farceurs . It displays colorful cinematography by cameraman Wilkie Cooper , filmed in studios : Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, and on location in Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London and good sets by production designer John Howell . Lively and evocative musical score by composer Ron Garnier.

This ¨A mouse on the moon¨¨(1963) results to be a sequel of ¨The mouse that roared¨(1963) . Although other characters from The Mouse That Roared (1959) showed up as Prime Minister Rupert Mountjoy and his opposition leader Benter , here Peter Sellers made that film , by playing multiple roles emulating his intimate actor , Alec Guinness, and David Kossoff as Kokintz was the only principal cast member of previous movie who returned to play the same role in the follow-up . In ¨A Mouse that roared¨the tiny country declares a war on the United States of America, hoping to lose and Peter Sellers is commander of a medieval force which arrives during a nuclear drill that has abandoned the streets , as Sellers acting as the scheming Prime Minister of Grand Fenwick, as the scheming Grand Duchess and as Tully Bascombe, commander of the medieval army . While this second outing ¨A Mouse on the moon¨ deals with the kingdom attempting to get the money necessary to put in new plumbing and along the way the Grand Duke is dreaming of hot baths , as they request foreign aid from the U. S. for Space Research , but the Russians send aid, as well, to show that they too are for the internationalization of space , then one scientist is slapping together a rocket.

This well-edited motion picture is compellingly directed by Richard Lester in one of his usual forays into the comedy genre . He reigned supreme as one of the greatest filmmakers of 60s , 70s and 80s , achieving an important cult popularity. Efficiently directed by Richard Lester providing attractive images in its own right , being filmed in his peculiar style coupled with typical surrealist comic touches . As the director's visual style is as witty and strong as always . At the beginning Lester directed various Beatles vehicles and subsequently made known comedies : ¨The knack¨ , a satire : ¨The bed sitting room¨ and a drama : ¨Petulia¨ . He got a big success with ¨The Three Musketeers¨ (1973), which he shot simultaneously with ¨The Four musketeers¨ (1974) for producer Ilya Salkind , resurrected his career . When the Salkinds (Ilya and his father Alexander Salkind) were in the midst of filming ¨Superman¨ (1978) simultaneously with its sequel, Lester was hired as a supervising producer, then took over the filming of the sequel, ¨Superman II¨ (1980), when original director Richard Donner was fired . The sequel was a financial and critical success , and he was hired to direct the far-less successful ¨Superman III¨ (1983) . At the end of the 1980s, Lester returned to the storyline that had revitalized his career back in the early 1970s , filming a second sequel to "The Three Musketeers" titled : ¨The return of the musketeers¨. ¨A mouse on the moon¨ rating : 6.5/10 . Decent and passable . If you like their crazy interpretations , you will most definitely enjoy this one.

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.

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.