Rodent Movie #1: The Mouse That Roared

Note that no single mouse plays a major role in this 1959 film, although the mouse causing the Columbia statue to pick up her toga and run away is a nice touch.

Despite the lack of real rodents, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Peter Sellers plays several characters in the Grand Duchy of Fenwick, which decides to declare war on the United States. The combination of charm, innocence, idiocy and pointed anti-war humor works well. Perhaps because I was in the mood to be amused and charmed, I liked this far more than Dr. Strangelove or the Pink Panther movies, all of which may be overall funnier, but not nearly as sweet. The portrayal of the US and Americans is disturbingly right on nearly 50 years later (generous, ignorant, forgiving, war-mongering, capitalistic, fun-loving and more interested in the World Series ["American football"] than in potential destruction of the planet).

Defintely a good start to a year of rodent movies.