February 26, 2023

I was rather disappointed with this comedy drama. Despite having a cast of solid and experienced British stalwarts as well as a few visitors from across the pond, it comes across as a sort of hybrid of "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) and "Mouse on the Moon" (1963) with neither the charm nor the fun of either. It all starts as Queen Victoria manages to destroy the all-electric home of the "Duke of Barset" (Dennis Price) before inaugurating th… read the rest.

I was rather disappointed with this comedy drama. Despite having a cast of solid and experienced British stalwarts as well as a few visitors from across the pond, it comes across as a sort of hybrid of "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956) and "Mouse on the Moon" (1963) with neither the charm nor the fun of either. It all starts as Queen Victoria manages to destroy the all-electric home of the "Duke of Barset" (Dennis Price) before inaugurating the suspension bridge of acclaimed engineer "Sir Charles Dillworthy" (Lionel Jeffries) right into the gorge it was supposed to span. Meantime, Phineas T. Barnum (Burl Ives) is having similar difficulties with his projects in the US of A, so he flees to Britain where he encounters these aforementioned two gentlemen and together they alight on a plan to build a rocket to the moon. It's never going to be simple - especially as the Duke's business partner is none other than "Sir Henry Washington-Smythe" (Terry-Thomas) so you just know that caddishness in on the horizon as their project lurches from one disaster to another. They've recruited "Prof. von Bulow" (Gert Fròbe) to design the propellent and Troy Donahue ("Gaylord") is going to be daft enough to try and fly the thing. All the ingredients for an enjoyable film are here, but at just shy of two hours it just misfires as ofter as their rocket for far too long before an ending that I found curiously fitting for all concerned. It is too episodic and the story takes an age to get to a stage where the rocket-ship even features. It's just a messy assembly of characters and sub-plots that allows the actors to play their part, but ensures the story lumbers along weakly. Terry-Thomas stands out, but he is just doing what he aways does and the usually reliable Dennis Price features all too sparingly (as does Fröbe) to make much impact on these admittedly colourful and stylish meanderings. To be honest, I was a bit bored by half way through and that didn't really improve.

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