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Summary: It's Don Knotts, what else do you need to know...?
Review: It's one of Don's funniest films. The humor is clean and he plays a character that you root to win.
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Summary: Sputniks, Siberia, and Man's inhumanity to adolescence...
Review: Not for the faint of heart or stomach, this unflinching indictment of Stalinism tells the story of five Russian adolescents from a small village outside Petrograd and their tragic passage through the hellish labyrinth of the Soviet penal system after they are caught playing 'Doctor' (for lack of a better term) in an empty classroom of their school. Don Knotts emerges as one of the modern cinema's most unsettling, demonic villains in his role as Ivan Mufti, the sadistic KGB chief overseeing the children's case, and the young ernest Borgnine, as Griboyedov, his portly Number One Lacky, could have taught the even younger Dennis Hopper a thing or two about applied creepiness back when this film was first released. With the early Sputnik experiments brewing murkily and everpresently in the background (hence the title, a somewhat sinister-ironic epitaph for Laika, sacrificial "passenger" of the first occupied Russian spaceflight), the action proceeds at a cruel, crafted, inexorable pace unknown to today's clunkety breed of filmmakers, and the denouement of the story is -- I'll spare you. Just don't prepare to sleep for a few nights, and count your blessings that you grew up in a democracy. But you owe it to yourself, as a sentient being, to rent/buy this movie. Objectively, and from our own much-different millenial vantage (as opposed to when it was made) it stands as perhaps THE most seminal document of the viral/memetic spread and rise of the consciousness of victimization in the latter half of our century.
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Summary: Wrong, Mr. Maltin
Review: Once again Leonard Maltin is wrong, wrong, wrong (see above). You either like Don Knotts or you don't. For those who do, and there are millions of us, his comedies from the 1960s like "The Reluctant Astronaut" are very entertaining, and, yes, very funny films.I grew up in the 1960s and "The Reluctant Astronaut" was another of those Don Knott's comedies that the whole family was taken to the drive-in theatre on a Friday night. For Leonard Maltin to call this childish is an unfair statement. I'm almost forty now and I still LOVE watching this movie as every bit as I did back in '67. I would never pay a dime to see Leonard Maltin act and I always turn the channel whenever he comes on television with one of his one sided reviews. What is funnier than seeing Knott's up in space opening a special can that shoots out peanut butter and then proceeds to do a dance around him like a snake? I am on the floor rolling! And who would ever think that Leslie Nielsen would ever become the icon for 90s comedies that he has today? He is very straight in this film which gives the film balance. They don't movies like this anymore. I highly recomend this video. Buy it now before it goes out of print.
Rating:
Summary: Wrong, Mr. Maltin
Review: Once again Leonard Maltin is wrong, wrong, wrong (see above). You either like Don Knotts or you don't. For those who do, and there are millions of us, his comedies from the 1960s like "The Reluctant Astronaut" are very entertaining, and, yes, very funny films. I grew up in the 1960s and "The Reluctant Astronaut" was another of those Don Knott's comedies that the whole family was taken to the drive-in theatre on a Friday night. For Leonard Maltin to call this childish is an unfair statement. I'm almost forty now and I still LOVE watching this movie as every bit as I did back in '67. I would never pay a dime to see Leonard Maltin act and I always turn the channel whenever he comes on television with one of his one sided reviews. What is funnier than seeing Knott's up in space opening a special can that shoots out peanut butter and then proceeds to do a dance around him like a snake? I am on the floor rolling! And who would ever think that Leslie Nielsen would ever become the icon for 90s comedies that he has today? He is very straight in this film which gives the film balance. They don't movies like this anymore. I highly recomend this video. Buy it now before it goes out of print.
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Summary: Lighthearted space program fun, typical of the era.
Review: One of the all-time classic Don Knotts films from his heyday in the mid-to-late 60s, "The Reluctant Astronaut" is reliable family fare on a Sunday afternoon. Knotts plays Roy Fleming, a lovable loser who suffers from vertigo, but ironically runs a moonshot kiddie ride at the town park. When his ex-military and hyper-controlling father submits an application for his son to become a real astronaut, havoc ensues when Roy is accepted! But not is all as it seems when the newly-minted town hero finds that he is not actually an astronaut trainee, but a custodial trainee! Naturally, the kindly Roy is under pressure not to hurt his father and the whole hometown crowd by revealing the truth. The plot and it's solutions are hardly a surprise to anyone by the time the picture ends. In fact, the only standardized element missing here concerns Roy Fleming's girlfriend. She starts out by ignoring the hapless Roy because he's a nobody, but when he becomes an astronaut, she's all attention. Pretty shallow, but so far so good. What's missing is the alternate/new girlfriend, who likes Roy for himself, not for his fame. That's usually the way romantic entanglements work out in this kind of picture, and it's kind of disappointing that Roy winds up with the "fair weather" gal. But while the movie is fairly standard, the "space fever" and intense interest in the space program the characters display at every turn clearly reflects just how Americans felt about the program and its astronauts at the time (unlike today!). The movie will be a fun ride for those who recall those heady days as America's pride was in full force, and we good guys were battling Russia for control of space. One think I liked here was the interesting and relatively rare NASA footage that pops up from time to time. The rocket sled sequence is especially notable for space program afficianados, as we get a good pilot's eye view of what it looked like to run down the sled track. We also get to see a few early rocket booster launches in real time, as opposed to the super-slow motion shots we're more familiar with. If anyone threatens to steal the picture, it would have to be Arthur O'Connell as Roy's dad, Buck Fleming. Gruff, boisterous, and ultimately poignant, O'Connell gives the character just the right amount of stature and sympathy to compliment the awkwardness and desperation of Knott's Roy Fleming. Jesse White (probably most famous for his role in "Harvey"), plays Fleming's gruff boss, and "Wagon Train" alum Frank McGrath is on hand as one of Buck Fleming's pals. Jeanette Nolan plays a relatively small and understated role as Roy's mother. Fans of Leslie Neilson will get a kick out of his presence in the picture as the good-natured pilot and astronaut, Major Fred Gifford. In a way, his inclusion in the cast seems like a friendly wink to his landmark space role in "Forbidden Planet". I have to ding the DVD one star for the lack of extras. We get the trailer, and while fun (and containing original material shot for the promo), that's about it. Some production notes on the crew's NASA interactions while filming would have been a huge win, but it's missing here. While the film is typical of light space program comedies from the time, "The Reluctant Astronaut" is probably the best of the bunch, and certainly better than most.
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Summary: Pingo Loves Cake
Review: The Reluctant Astronaut is as worthy of repeated viewings as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. I watched both of these films thanks to a summer movie program offered in my town during my childhood. Both films were written by people who wrote the classic Andy Griffith Show episodes. Classic character actors from the Andy Griffith Show appear throughout both films as well. You should own these two finest of Don Knotts' movies.
My favorite moment from The Reluctant Astronaut (as a child AND as an adult) is the absolutely surreal scene where Royal Fleming (Knotts) has a welcoming home party, and Pingo the dog jumps in the cake and starts eating it. Everyone at the party is shocked except the lady who owns the dog. She seems delighted. When I saw this scene again for the first time in 25 years, I laughed so hard I cried! This is great writing, a great cast, and CLASSIC Don Knotts!
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Summary: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blastoff to hilarity
Review: The Reluctant Astronaut is one of the truly classic Don Knotts films, consistently hilarious while also sporting some touching scenes between a father and his son. Roy Fleming (Knotts) is just about the last person you would want to shoot into space: I seriously doubt he could pass NASA's physical requirements, for one thing; he knows next to nothing about the requisite technology; and he is so terrified by heights that he can't even stand in a chair by himself. Fleming is just a below-average regular guy simulating space flights for kids at a carnival, trying to win the heart of the hot dog girl, and still living with his parents at the age of 35. His father has what you might call a dominating personality, and poor Roy proves unable to convince him that he does not want to be an astronaut. His father submitted the application for him, though, and he has already spread the word all over town that his son has been accepted. With great trepidation, Roy leaves for Houston (which is a funny bit all by itself), meets up with famous astronaut Fred Gifford (Leslie Nielsen), and is more than a little surprised to find out that he is actually going to be an assistant janitor. He tries to tell his father the truth, but the old man is so proud of his astronaut son that Roy begins living a lie. Of course, the truth will out in the end, and it looks like there will be no happy ending in sight. Then, in the depths of failure, a light of opportunity suddenly shines on Roy, and he gets the chance to make things right- if he has the courage to do what is asked of him.
This was a role seemingly tailor-made for Don Knotts. He's thoroughly convincing as the small-time loser pretending to be something he is not. While the film itself is openly silly, Knotts plays the scattered serious moments in a wonderfully sympathetic way and transforms his character into a hero of sorts even before he sets foot in the space capsule. It goes without saying that he is a comic genius, as well, so you can imagine just how funny his outer space scenes are. I wish I could catalogue every funny moment in the film, but that would deny viewers the pleasure of experiencing them all for themselves. Suffice it to say that The Reluctant Astronaut features one of history's funniest actors in one of his funniest movies - and it's good, wholesome entertainment, to boot.
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Summary: Vic Mizzy's score is the best!
Review: The scores to all of these early 1960's Don Knott's films are remarkable. The movies themselves are a laugh riot. Why aren't these our on DVD??
Rating:
Summary: Vic Mizzy's score is the best!
Review: The scores to all of these early 1960's Don Knott's films are remarkable. The movies themselves are a laugh riot. Why aren't these our on DVD??
Rating:
Summary: One of Don's Best!
Review: This great movie played in theaters as a double bill with THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN in its second run. Naturally I went back to see it again. I will also watch the DVDs this way to re-creat the original effect. Don Knotts only did two WIDESCREEN pictures for Universal, this is not one of them. However it will be 'matted' to give a wider screen look, the way it played in the theaters. The full frame look it gets on TV shows the entire 35mm frame.
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