"The Mouse That Roared", complete movie, just showed up on my youtube

[niyad]

feed. Always liked that movie!

[OldBaldy1701E]

1. It is the premise that I love so much.

Both the idea and the fact that the US just didn't care to notice the fact that they were doing that they are doing.

Sounds familiar for some reason.....

(Peter Sellers was a genius.)

[niyad]

2. He was indeed. I do wonder a bit about the timing. Fortuitous?

[malthaussen]

7. Interesting question.

If "John Goldfarb Please Come Home" shows up next, I'll have my suspicions.

-- Mal

[niyad]

10. Never saw that one.

[malthaussen]

11. Quite hilarious, though it may irritate you as a feminist.

John Goldfarb is a U-2 pilot who gets lost and crash-lands in an oil-rich Arab country which the USA has just mortally offended by offering pigskin luggage to the Sultan (played by Peter Ustinov) as a diplomatic gift. The offended Sultan refuses to repatriate the pilot unless the US allows his football team (coached by Goldfarb) to play Notre Dame. Mr Goldfarb (played by Richard Crenna) is famously known as "Wrong Way Goldfarb" for having returned a recovered fumble for a touchdown for the opposing team (this has actually happened in both college and professional football, by the way). Shirley MacLain plays a reporter who goes to the country to report on the controversy; the Sultan lusts for her and wants to induct her into his harem, but she persuades Goldfarb to protect her by claiming her for himself (this is the part I think you might find offensive). In the end, the game is played, the locals win on a touchdown scored by Shirley, because the Notre Dame players won't tackle a dame, relations with the country are mended, the oil flows, and hero and heroine fly off (the wrong way) into the sunset. It's a horrible movie, so terrible it is pure gold.

-- Mal

[niyad]

12. You are quite correct about that. Just reading your synopsis is

quite enough for me, even with the stellar cast.

[malthaussen]

14. The cast also included some of the best character actors of the period...

... Jim Backus, Scott Brady, Fred Clarke, Henry Morgan, and Wilfrid Hyde-Whyte, to name only a few. Shirley MacLaine's wardrobe by Edith Head. Music by "Johnny Williams." As many critics have commented, it was a tremendous waste of top-notch talent.

-- Mal

[NNadir]

3. I love that movie, although I haven't seen it in years.

[niyad]

4. It is on youtube for free right now.

[NNadir]

5. Regrettably I won't find time to watch it in the near future, but I will say that Peter Sellers was a real genius.

A weird genius, but a genius all the same.

[malthaussen]

6. Just showed up on mine, too.

Ah, those were simpler times.

-- Mal

[Aristus]

8. I never cared that much for the movie version. Not a big Peter Sellers fan.

He was brilliant in "Dr. Strangelove". But just about everything else, I can take or leave him.

I love the concept of Grand Fenwick. I have a fascination with very small countries, fictional or real, and that may have something to do with it. But with "TMTR", the mind-movie I see when I read the books is better than the actual film. In my own version, Duchess Gloriana is the very young woman portrayed in the book, seemingly innocent and naive, but actually a capable leader with a spine of steel. All of that gets lost in Peter Sellers' unsubtle drag performance.

If I were to make my own film of the book, I would cast someone like Amy Adams. She's too old for the role now, but that idea, at least.

[niyad]

9. Hmmm, maybe Amanda Seyfried or Lily James?

I only watched the first few minutes when it popped up, so that it would hold until I have time to watch the whole thing. "In every way possible, he really WAS "the father of his country".

[Aristus]

13. Excellent choices!