Monkeys, Go Home!

The last time Maurice Chevalier appeared before a movie camera was in this anemic comedy from the Magic Kingdom, Monkeys Go Home. Although he would contribute his voice for an animated Disney project, The Aristocats, this was his farewell to the cinema. Not the best film for France's ambassador to the world to go out on.

Chevalier is the village priest and confidante of young American Dean Jones who has inherited some land in the south of France and olive groves to go with it. I will say this for the film, I learned more about the growing and harvesting of the olives more than I ever expected. The problem is in the harvesting, but Dean's got that licked so he thinks with the training of four female chimpanzees to do the labor. The chimps do work cheap and that upsets a lot of plans including those of Clement Harrari the villain of our piece who is a real estate entrepreneur. Nice to see some of them are as unscrupulous in France as they are on this side of the pond. Harrari has as a henchman Bernard Worringer who is jealous because Yvette Mimieux likes the new American settler better than him.

Monkeys Go Home just doesn't quite get off the ground as a comedy, Dean Jones would have to wait until he found a Volkswagen with a soul before he scored big in Disney films. One bit I thought was a bit much for the Disney family studio. Yvette Mimieux believes in all work and no play is not good for the four female chimpanzees and buys a male. Now you don't have to have a degree in animal husbandry to figure out what's going to happen to your simian work force at that point. I'm surprised that bit got out at the Magic Kingdom.

Maurice Chevalier is usual dapper and charming self, I do so wish he had a better film to make his exit with.