A mouse? Roaring?

Peter Sellers in 1959

On a quiet night after kids were in bed, I was caught by a movie. Carrying a load of laundry through the room, Peter Sellers appeared on the screen and that did it for me. I sat down and started sorting socks as the movie unfolded.

The main characters are Peter Sellers (who plays three roles), Jean Seberg, William Hartnell, and Leo McKern, all talents in the English stage, TV and film. 

This is a standard movie trailer from 1959,

The 1959 movie, The Mouse that Roared leads the viewer through the country of Grand Fenwick, supported by its export of wine. A country the size of a town in Rhode Island, Grand Fenwick is a pre-industry state and darn proud of it. When California undercuts the product by selling its own wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick, the country is bankrupt.  

To save the country, Peter Sellers (prime minister, Count Rupert Montjoy) suggests that Grand Fenwick declare war on the United States. The thinking was:

"The surest way to wealth today is to lose a war with the United States, for that country's odd reaction is to pour aid, relief and rehabilitation on the vanquished."

But first, the Grand Fenwick army has to attack America. Twenty soldiers in medieval chainmail, carrying bows and arrows, catch a ride on a French tug. They arrive at the New York harbor during an air-raid drill, which confuses the heck out of the army since the streets are empty.

Wandering through the streets of NY

The nervous army is mistaken for invading Martians (what?) and somehow a bumbling American general investigates. The Grand Fenwick army accidently shoot his tires out with bow and arrow. They capture the General and four NYPD officers. 

Meanwhile the G.F. army is frantically looking for a place to surrender. They somehow end up with the Q Bomb which is capable of destroying an entire continent. Beyond all expectations, G.F. wins the war.

The G.F. capture the scientist and his daughter, taking them AND the Q Bomb back to Grand Fenwick. When the conquering F.B. army returns to Grand Fenwick, things go a bit wild at this point.

It is exhausting to try to tell this story.  But  this is an English movie, crisp with tight dialogue, humor that threads through all the bumbling one can imagine.

Just watch it. It is a movie for a quiet night with a glass of wine or three, and no expectations. The socks can wait to be sorted.