Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Francis Goes to West Point Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 22, 2022

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of the Francis the Talking Mule 7 Film Collection.

None other than the legendary Stephen Sondheim opined that "you gotta have a gimmick" in one of his more celebrated lyrics for Gypsy, which true trivia fans will know was subtitled as "a musical fable" in its original Broadway incarnation. That sobriquet may help to elucidate that Sondheim was offering near "Aesop moral" levels of advice about what was needed to achieve success in the wild and woolly world of show business. In that regard, Arthur Lubin had a long and interesting career in both the theater and film (and, later, television) industries, and his career in Hollywood lasted for decades, resulting in a number of well remembered projects in a rather dazzling array of genres, including several films starring Abbott & Costello, the 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera and Technicolor exotica like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. If some online data aggregators insist that Lubin is "best remembered" these days for having offered Clint Eastwood his first contract, some folks may counter that Lubin is at least as "immortal" (in certain circles, anyway) for having carved out one of the weirdest niches in show business history by (here comes the "gimmick" part) first spearheading a series of films featuring a talking mule, and then slightly tweaking that premise some years later for the decidedly similar television sitcom Mister Ed: The Complete Series (note that the link points to a DVD release). Now Kino Lorber and Universal are offering the complete Francis the Talking Mule series on Blu-ray, all advertised as having been "newly remastered in 2K", and all having some rather interesting and surprisingly far reaching commentaries included as bonus features.

According to the commentaries on both this disc and Francis Covers the Big Town, the two films were shot back to back to capitalize on the popularity of the first two Francis outings and in preparation for what looked like the end of Donald O'Connor's tenure at Universal. Interestingly in that regard, Francis Goes to West Point may come off as a bit tired and repetitive due to its military setting, while the "big city" environs of Francis Covers the Big Town may give it a little spark that is at least slightly unusual for the fourth film in a series. The film actually starts with Peter Stirling (Donald O'Connor) as a civilian worker at a top secret defense plant, and when Francis tips Peter off that there's some nefarious activity about to go down there, Peter is able to thwart a quasi-terrorist plot that makes him an unexpected hero.

That (bumbling) heroism gets Peter a "gift" to attend West Point, but there's a bit of illogic in all of this since the first film already documented that Peter was a Second Lieutenant in the Army in World War II (he was that rank when he met Francis for the first time, in fact), so it's a little "questionable" what a stint as a cadet (who will graduate as a Second Lieutenant) is going to do for Peter other than provide another venue for laughs. The farcical elements here revolve around misunderstandings between two sets of guys named Bill, Bill Allen (William Reynolds) and Bill Norton (Gregg Palmer, credited as Palmer Lee), and two women who are at least tangentially (and in one case, more than tangentially) connected to them, Barbara Atwood (Lori Nelson) and Cynthia Daniels (Alice Kelley), the later of whom is also the daughter of local big kahuna Colonel Daniels (Les Tremayne). Francis signs on as a West Point "mascot" in order to supervise what he already senses is going to be Peter's tough time as a so-called "plebe".

The comedy is a bit more forced here, and there are probably one too many instances of Francis first not agreeing to speak around non-Peter individuals, but then doing it, anyway, leading to fainting spells, in a trope that is used repeatedly throughout the series but which here in only the third film already feels like it's been done too much.

Francis Goes to West Point Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Francis Goes to West Point is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber and Universal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. Of the Academy Ratio films in this set, perhaps due to their relative "newness", this and its disc sibling Francis Covers the Big Town are probably the strongest overall looking transfers, though in this particular case it's again a bit on the dark side at times, which at least gives support for some nicely deep blacks. Lubin actually utilizes a few more close-ups in this piece, especially of Francis, and fine detail is quite inviting in these moments. This is another Francis offering that kind of fitfully attempts to incorporate stock footage, in this case of cadets marching and football games, not always to completely organic effect. With an understanding that the stock footage can look ragged in terms of both detail, general condition and especially grain structure, grain resolves nicely throughout this presentation. My score is 3.75.

Francis Goes to West Point Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track on this film shows some of the same thinness in the upper registers that the first two films did, I'd term it a bit less noticeable here, and in fact a bunch of the "military" cues scattered throughout the score, which necessarily feature a lot of brass, sound reasonably full bodied almost all of the time. Dialogue and effects are presented cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles are available. As with my video score, my score is 3.75.

Francis Goes to West Point Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Francis Goes to West Point and Francis Covers the Big Town share a disc. The disc features the following supplements:

• Audio Commentary for Francis Goes to West Point by Film Historian Toby Roan


• Audio Commentary for Francis Covers the Big Town by Film Historian Stephen Vagg


• Francis Goes to West Point Trailer (HD; 2:19)

Francis Goes to West Point Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

According to some of the supplemental commentaries, even the venerable Arthur Lubin was beginning to feel like the Francis "craze" had run its course by this third film, and you can kind of feel a bit of lethargy creeping into the proceedings. There are still laughs to be had, but this is overly contrived and never really as consistently funny as some of the other films. Technical merits are generally solid for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.