Word: mule
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Francis is an Army mule who can talk. He gives orders in a voice which sounds like Wallace Becry imitating an Army mule; these orders are taken by an amicable idiot played gracefully by Donald O'Connor. Francis knows how to win the war single-footedly, and O'Connor can wiggle his cars and heehaw softly. Together they make an unbeatable combat team, but they do not make a very funny movie...
When Lieut. O'Connor bags a Japanese observation post on information supplied by the mule, his colonel (Ray Collins) treats him like a hero. When he tries to share the credit with Francis, he is put to weaving baskets in the neuropsychiatric ward. Released, O'Connor goes on heroically fighting the one-mule war; as his coups get bigger, so do the baskets...
Francis, who could have settled the Army psychiatrists' problem with a few words, lets them stew in their conferences, finally speaks up to a three-star general (John McIntire). After resuming his silence long enough to cast doubt on the general's sanity, the mule tells off a roomful of war correspondents and wins his own hero's reward...
...leaden for fantasy, the movie is mulishly slow, and so prone to linger on the obvious that for a while it barely makes the grade as comedy. Not content to have Francis show up his military superiors, Author-Scripter Stern lets the mule go on haranguing them as well. But in its best scenes, the picture kicks up enough fun to numb a tolerant moviegoer to its shortcomings. Actor O'Connor makes an amiable nitwit, and Francis (voice by horse opera's Chill Wills) is a tribute to the patience and technical skill of moviemaking...
Francis is played by a real Army veteran who underwent a 16-hour-a-day movie course with studio Trainer Jimmy Phillips. Recruited for the film from a Calabasas, Calif, mule dealer, he was dyed a darker hue from head to hoof, wore greasepaint on his mouth, powder on his nose, a "rat" in his tail, half-inch false eyelashes and-until he balked-extra-sized false ears. Like many a new-found star, patient Francis is currently making personal appearances with the picture...