The Mouse That Roared **** (1959, Peter Sellers, Leo McKern, David Kossoff) – Classic Movie Review 1646

Director Jack Arnold’s delightful, often hilarious British 1959 satirical comedy showcases three tailor-made roles for Peter Sellers – the dotty Grand Duchess Gloriana XII of Grand Fenwick, the peace-minded, resourceful general Tully Bascombe and the tricky prime minister Count Rupert of Mountjoy of a tiny near-bankrupt French Alps duchy that invades America.

A California vintner starts producing a cheaper copy of Grand Fenwick’s only export – its one wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick – bringing the Fenwick economy to its knees. The Prime Minister believes the only solution is to declare a quick war on the US.

The wily Sellers has great fun in his showy tour-de-force, particularly in his drag performance as the duchess, and so do Leo McKern as the opposition leader Benter and David Kossoff as the bomb-inventing mad scientist, Doctor Alfred Kokintz.

Roger MacDougall and Stanley Mann make a grand job of the writing duties, lovingly adapting the plot characters and themes from by Leonard Wibberley’s novel The Wrath of Grapes. The movie has shades of Sellers ‘s triumphant movie Dr Strangelove, and it’s a huge compliment to sat that this is a comparison that doesn’t entirely shame it.

In a confusing gender-bender development, Margaret Rutherford took over the Sellers role in the 1963 sequel Mouse on the Moon.

Jean Seberg as Dr Kokintz’s daughter Helen and William Hartnell as Will Buckley also star, along with Harold Krasket, Timothy Bateson, Guy Deghy and Monty Landis.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1646

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