roar.

I had a chance to watch The Mouse That Roared this week, having watched Wag The Dog last week. It's always interesting to watch things that play on similar themes, or were done by the same director or actor consecutively. I enjoy drawing comparisons across a number of films or a body of work and find that to be a really useful way to learn more about a particular area of filmmaking. 

In this case, here are two political satires, done about 30 years apart. I tend to think that the quality of films made 30 or more years ago is generally better than those made today. Sure, films today look slicker, with the effects and the better optics and imaging processes that we have available, but they often are much thinner on story and acting, among other things. That's not to say that there aren't any good films made today, it just seems like there is a lot more garbage put out. I particularly think that there are a lot of poorly conceived, diluted remakes out there. But the fact that there aren't too many original ideas left in Hollywood shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. 

As for these two films, I must say that despite Peter Sellers ability as an actor to play three distinct parts, long before the likes of Eddie Murphy or Michael J. Fox did this, the film has its shortcomings. Mainly they are due to the production values. This film was made during that period where black and white was being used less and less, and the Technicolor process had taken on a life of its own, causing many films to have an artificial look. There was not much that was beautiful about some of these films. They tended to look very flat, but not due to the lack of tonality available to filmmakers. In fact, Technicolor generally had excellent color saturation and vibrancy, better quality than even the processes we have available today. It was due more to the lack of imagination and innovation that had been happening during the 40's and 50's, particularly with film noir.

The Mouse That Roared seems to suffer from a lower budget that led to some very hokey looking compositing. There are several really awful looking scenes where the characters are supposed to be walking through downtown Manhattan, but clearly they are just walking back and forth in front of a green screen. There are several other instances like this, but what it lacks visually, it makes up for with a rather clever story, and of course the performances by Peter Sellers. He plays the Prime Minister and Duchess of Grand Fenwick, as well as the rather inept general that commands a ragtag military contingent. The smallest country in the world finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy (sound familiar?) without a market for its domestic wine production. So the leaders decide to "invade" the United States, quickly surrender, and then receive compensation for their "losses" in the war in order to rebuild their country. The only problem is that their plan goes too well, and they end up inadvertently winning the war.

It's quite interesting how a film such as this can remain relevant so many years after its release. In some ways, I think that is the power of satire. History's cyclical nature seems to guarantee that if you have a good idea just a bit too late, it's time will come around again.