Don Knotts

  • No Time for Sergeants (1958)

    No Time for Sergeants (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2021) I’m normally a good audience for military comedies, but there’s something in No Time for Sergeants that simply (and repeatedly) fails to work. I was left bored and unmoved throughout much of the film, but I think I know why. First up would be a lack of familiarity and liking for the leads of the film — featuring Andy Griffith in the lead role (one of his first) may be a boon to everyone familiar with The Andy Griffith show, but it’s not a step up over his powerhouse dramatic performance in A Face in the Crowd. Many of the supporting players (including Don Knotts) are similarly unfamiliar, so there isn’t much of an attachment. The other big factor, I suspect, is that the film was conceived as a military comedy at a time when the vast majority of the male American audience for the film had some military service due to the draft — as a result, the film often feels like one big inside joke aimed at those who were familiar with the basics of the situation. Or, you know, it just may be that the film hasn’t aged very well. To its credit, No Time for Sergeants (adapted from a Broadway play, possibly another issue) does get a bit funnier toward the end, as our protagonists are believed dead in a nuclear test explosion and make their way back to life. But it’s a bit too little too late, and doesn’t do much to make the film much better in its entirety.

  • The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)

    The Reluctant Astronaut (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2020) It’s not that I don’t get Don Knotts—the wild-eyed goofy shtick is timeless—but seen from the twenty-first century, it’s not all that clear why he ended up with that many starring roles in 1960s comedies. Films like mostly-forgotten curio The Reluctant Astronaut, which takes some inspiration from space-age race-to-the-moon mania to feature decidedly the un-heroic Knotts as a janitor promoted to space pioneer. It’s actually not a bad premise to match a high-profile comic actor with a topical situation (somehow, we were spared a 2010s Adam-Sandler-in-SpaceX remake). And, to be fair, Knotts understands the assignment perfectly: he plays the fool very well, and the film fits completely around his performance. If you want some comic theory, The Reluctant Astronaut is very much a film-long exploration of the clash between the sacred and the profane. Speaking of which—not-quite white-haired Leslie Nielsen plays the straight man in this silly comedy, portending his later-career turn as a comic icon. Space enthusiasts may be amused at the integration of real-life footage shot at Cape Kennedy. The story is familiar, but the historical value is rather interesting—for a dose of space-age pop optimism (the film feels closer to Kennedy-era 1960s than hippie-1960s), for how Hollywood comedies don’t change all that much throughout the decades, and perhaps even for understanding Knott’s appeal as a star.

  • The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

    The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2020) The documentary evidence that is The Incredible Mr. Limpet suggests that once upon a time, Don Knotts was considered a bona fide movie star. Okay. While we process this, a look at the film itself also suggests that this was the special-effects family movie event of 1965. It describes how an ordinary bookkeeper (Knotts, obviously) transforms into a fish (animated, with glasses), falls in love with another fish despite being married, befriends a crab, gets a lieutenant’s commission with the US Navy, helps the war effort by locating U-Boats, and runs away with his new fish-wife after the war is over. Again: Okay. Mystifying charm of the leading man and insane plot summary aside… all right, I can’t keep kidding: there is no “aside” of those two things. Even the copious amount of animation required for the concept only highlights just how weird this whole thing is. Knott disappears from the screen once he’s a fish, but his voice carries through the end of the film. So, someone so unhappy in the world becomes a fish and kills a few hundred people? Top-notch family film right there. Kids’ propaganda film for the US Navy, kids’ propaganda for extreme body dimorphism, kids’ propaganda for interspecies polygamy… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see this in a few years and laugh all the way through. Right now, I’m just overwhelmed by the weirdness. Just listen to “I Wish I Were a Fish” and see how you feel after. Sure, the film was a hit with kids and still has its fans. But: Okay.