I Watch Films: Mouse On The Moon

 Mouse On The Moon

Grand Fenwick, a comedy fictional micronation, has only one export, wine. Unfortunately it has started exploding and so they are going to be bankrupt. This is especially bad for the Hereditary Prime Minister, who wants to fix the plumbing in the castle.

He comes up with a cunning plan. They have a world-class scientist Professor Kokintz. They apply to the United States for a grant of $500,000 for space exploration. The Americans, like everyone else, think this is ludicrous, but in the spirit of international co-operation give $1,000,000. Not to be outdone the Soviet Union gift a surplus rocket. Meanwhile the Prime Minister’s son (Bernard Cribbens) returns from being educated in England, with both a sense of English fairplay and the ambition to be an astronaut, neither of which the Prime Minister approves of. The rocket is mounted in a tower as part of the plumbing. Meanwhile Kokintz has discovered that using the exploding wine he can make a rocket fuel.

The satire comes into it’s own in the middle section, as the British, worried by all this space activity, suspect that Grand Fenwick aren’t using the money for their own purposes, as everyone thought, but are underhandedly using it for it’s stated purpose, space exploration. They send a spy to investigate.

A bit of light-hearted cold war/space race comedy, with some amusing scenes. The space stuff is a bit dubious, but I don’t expect perfect celestial mechanics from a satirical film from the 60s.

Watch This: A classic comedy some of whose political lampooning still stands up
Don’t Watch This: An inferior retread of the superior prequel