Parental expectations can be a cruel thing. Just look at WWI war veteran Arthur O’Connell and how he treats his son Don Knotts. His rearing of Knotts was apparently militaristic in nature, with him being literally marched around the house at his father’s command. Then he sends in an application to NASA for Knotts to become an astronaut, without his son’s knowledge.
It is no surprise he is the most unlikely person to go into space, but when he’s in a movie like 1967’s The Reluctant Astronaut, it is necessary he must do just that. I think that is a rather perfect title. When you start with a title like that, the movie basically writes itself.
Unfortunately, he has a crippling fear of heights. It is so extreme that he can’t even descend three steps without assistance. We see this in the opening scene where it appears he is already commanding a space module, when he is actually acting in the saddest kiddie ride I have ever seen. It isn’t even really a ride, as it is only him and the kids in a small room as they pretend to be in space.
That fear of heights extends to flying, and a recurring gag has him hiding in the bushes whenever an airborne vehicle he is supposed to be on is about to lift off. It is expected, but still funny, when the same happens on what is supposed to be his space mission.
He was only supposed to be on that rocket because NASA gets wind of a Russian mission in the near future, where the sole astronaut will be a completely inexperienced person. Not sure what they were hoping to accomplish with that, nor why the Americans feel the need to beat them to the punch. It’s like a full-length movie version of that Simpsons episode where Homer is sent up in the shuttle because NASA feels they need an everyman for a change.
Apparently, the public doesn’t want suave, manly space cowboys like Leslie Nielsen, He’s here as the straight man in an otherwise ridiculous comedy. This is even weirder than seeing the future comedian in Forbidden Planet, as that film is predominately not a comedy.
Originally, Nielsen was supposed to be on the mission, and it was he who recommended Knotts to his superiors when the objective changes. Instead, Knotts had been hired for a different purpose, and that is to be what we now call a “maintenance engineer”. As his boss, sitcom staple Jesse White puts it, Knotts is not even a janitor. He is an assistant janitor.
Knotts tries to explain the unexpected job change to his Dad, and learns O’Connell is not the war hero he claims to be. His service was entirely in a library, and he never even left the states. “What about your wound?” “Encyclopedia Britanica fell on me.”
The big question for a picture like this is whether it is funny or not. As usual, your mileage may vary, but I didn’t like it as much as Knotts’s previous film, The Ghost & Mr. Chicken. Some gags are pretty much guaranteed laugh-getters, such as when he accidentally opens the door to the G-force simulator centrifuge while it is in operation. Others are dumb gags I can’t believe I laughed at, such as when a bartender slides a beer down the counter at the oblivious Knotts and it just flies off the end. What can I say, I’m an easy laugh.
Most of the gags in the space flight that is the third act were a bit too daft for even me to laugh at. Most of it is various objects suspended in the air by wires that are even more obvious than usual in this type of thing. Some of those are crackers, and I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough even for a comedy like this to accept they would have any food on the mission that could so easily fragment into a million shards which could then get into the instruments. Once again, it is like that Simpsons episode, and what happens with the bag of potato chips Homer sneaks on board. Then there’s the gag with the tube of peanut butter, which becomes a snake-like object floating around him in a menacing manner. There’s even like I think of as the “Indian snake-charmer” stock music used in that scene.
The Reluctant Astronaut is not the best of the films Knotts did for Universal but, if you enjoyed any one of those, you’ll like this one, too. Just be prepared to turn your brain off enough to accept a space capsule being large to keep a small herd of cattle inside. This will provide your peanut better snake plenty of room to roam.
Dir: Edward Montagne
Starring Don Knotts, Leslie Nielsen, Joan Freeman
Watched on Shout Factory blu-ray