Word: mule
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...remember and what exists. In crowded places like Coney Island I see how a man sits, how he looks at his children. On a trip south I see how a road turns. In Chattanooga last year I stood for two days in a filthy dump to paint a mule-my shoes are still in Tennessee...
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 confronted with a talking mule, the picture's Army men do a double-take. Francis' feat of standing at attention with his tail pointing straight up inspires the same reaction. Situations like these are faintly amusing the first time; they are tiring when repeated every few minutes. Francis' superior intelligence marks him as a natural leader, but his rise is mulishly slow and painfully drawn...
...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...