The Mouse On The Moon
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This sequel to The Mouse That
Roared is a light-hearted parody of international diplomacy, the early
sixties space race and Bond spy movies. Terry Thomas plays a bumbling MI5 agent
and CIA mole who is assigned the task of finding out what really is going
on in the small Duchy of Grand Fenwick. Prime Minister Mountjoy (Ron
Moody), who is obsessed with bringing indoor plumbing to the citizens of
Duchy, devises a scheme to finance his project by asking the United States
for a $500,000 loan for space research. Mountjoy's scheme takes on a
life of its own when the Americans offer a $1 million grant, and the
Duchy's mad Professor Kokintz (David Kosoff) discovers that
Fenwickian red wine is an ideal rocket fuel. The PM's son, Vincent
Mountjoy (Bernard Cribbins) complicates matters further by deciding he will be the first man on the moon. So much for indoor plumbing.
The Americans and Russians are dumbfounded when
the old Russian rocket given to the Fenwickians actually launches
successfully. Not to be outdone, the two superpowers rush to
launch their own spacecraft, but the flag of Grand Fenwick
is the first to be planted on lunar soil. The gravity defying antics
of Professor Kokintz and Vincent Mountjoy on the moon's surface
foreshadow events that occur during the real American moon landing only six
years later. But with his first "small step" on the moon,
Vincent Mountjoy finds
himself buried up to his neck in moon dust! Directed by Richard
Lester, this 85-minute spoof is an adaptation of a novel by Irish writer
Leonard Wibberley whose later novels, The Mouse on Wall Street, The Mouse
That Saved the West, and Beware the Mouse! never reached the silver
screen. |
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