I had somehow avoided seeing The Mouse That Roared until a few weeks ago. Perhaps because I'd seen its sequel, The Mouse on the Moon, I expected a gentle comedy where the action all took place in the fictional European statelet of Grand Fenwick. So I was surprised to find that much of the film is set in New York.
That was not the only surprise. With its satirising of Cold War thinking and the multiple roles played by Peter Sellers, it looks forward to Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove. Grand Fenwick declares war on the USA, reasoning that when it is defeated it will reap a fortune in American. Only it wins the war and brings the US's deadly new Q bomb back home from New York.
Sellers gets good support from the welcome faces of William Hartnell and Leo McKern, and – remarkably – Jean Seberg has a prominent role too. It's one to watch next time it's on Talking Pictures TV.
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