Complete credited cast: | |||
Don Knotts | ... | Roy Fleming | |
Leslie Nielsen | ... | Major Fred Gifford | |
Joan Freeman | ... | Ellie Jackson | |
Jesse White | ... | Donelli | |
Jeanette Nolan | ... | Mrs. Fleming | |
Frank McGrath | ... | Plank | |
Arthur O'Connell | ... | Buck Fleming | |
Joan Shawlee | ... | Blonde in Bar | |
Guy Raymond | ... | Bert | |
Nydia Westman | ... | Aunt Zana | |
Paul Hartman | ... | Rush | |
Robert F. Simon | ... | Cervantes (as Robert Simon) | |
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Robert Pickering | ... | Moran |
Don Knotts is Roy Fleming, a small town kiddie-ride operator who is deathly afraid of heights. After learning that his father has signed him up for the space program, Roy reluctantly heads for Houston, only to find out upon arriving that his job is a janitor, not an astronaut. Anxious to live up to the expectations of his domineering father, Roy manages to keep up a facade of being an astronaut to his family and friends. When NASA decides to launch a lay person into space to prove the worthiness of a new automated spacecraft, Roy gets the chance to confront his fears. Written by Teresa E Tutt <tuttt@rpi.edu>
The Reluctant Astronaut stars Don Knotts as the owner and operator of kiddie ride in an amusement park somewhere in rural Missouri who has a fear of heights. He's something of a disappointment to his WW1 veteran father Arthur O'Connell, but he's mother Jeanette Nolan's darling little boy.
With a bit of pressure Knotts applies for a position with NASA. But after a big farewell blowout, he finds he's been hired as a janitor with Jesse White as a perpetually exasperated supervisor.
He does go into space, but quite accidentally and then because NASA is testing a most automatic space capsule one designed for idiots in space. That provides a lot of climatic laughs.
The film owes a lot of Preston Sturges's classic comedy Hail The Consquering Hero. And some of the astronaut sequences were tried out in the Road To Hong Kong with Bob and Bing.
A couple of other major roles are filled out well by Joan Freeman as Knotts's Missouri girlfriend and Leslie Nielsen as an astronaut who befriends him.
The comedy which is set in America's early days of space travel still holds up well for today's audience.