The Mouse That Roared - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Mouse That Roared or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Mouse That Roared

[jessie]

Jack Arnold soon learned that Peter Sellers did his best work on the first take and was usually useless by take three. The actor, schooled in improvisation, couldn't keep the lines fresh if he had to say them over and over.

[charlie]

Although Jack Arnold and Walter Shenson thought the dailies were hilarious, Carl Foreman and Columbia's European head didn't get it. Their lack of response was so discouraging, Arnold stopped going to the daily screenings.

[ronnie]

The British and American prints of the film vary in their opening narration, using British and American voices respectively.

[linda]

Columbia previewed the film at two different New York theatres, the Trans-Lux, which was an art house, and Loew's 84th Street, which showed more popular entertainment. Both audiences roared with laughter. As a result, Foreman recalled the prints so the titles could be changed from "High Road presents" to "Carl Foreman presents."

[phyllis]

While filming, Peter Sellers was acting on stage in the comedy Brouhaha, which also dealt with a mythical kingdom whose ruler develops an outlandish plot to secure U.S. aid. Five days a week, he had to be at the studio at 6:30 a.m. for makeup and wardrobe, then get himself to the theatre by 7 p.m. During location shooting, a driver picked him up at the theatre after the performance and he slept in the car on the way to the film shoot.

[sylvia]

Over the years, Columbia Pictures allowed visual jokes to be played using their "Lady Liberty" logo on several occasions. At the end of Strait-Jacket (1964) (in which Joan Crawford played an axe murderess) the lady is seen with her severed head laying at her feet. In the credits for Cat Ballou (1965), she doffs her robe and fires off several shots with a pair of pistols. Here, Lady Liberty sees a mouse run across her feet and flees from her pedestal, leaving her torch behind, hanging from an electrical extension cord.

[elmer]

Among the musical quotations used by Edwin Astley in the film were excerpts from Felix Mendelssohn's "Hebrides Overture", "Rule Britannia", "A Life on the Ocean Waves", "Frankie and Johnnie", a number of American marches, including a number of passages from "Our Director" and Astley's own score for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955).

[clayton]

Peter Sellers modelled the Grand Duchess on his grandmother. He also used shtick he had developed for the radio series Ray's a Laugh, in which one of the characters he played, was an eccentric old woman named Crystal Jollibottom.

[richard]

In response to his blunder, the State Department official who ignored the declaration of war was exiled to Yap, which is one of the Caroline Islands of Micronesia. It has a land mass of 38.7 square miles, with a maximum altitude of 584 feet and (as of the 1958 census) had a population of 5,540.

[addison]

Grand Fenwick is ruled by Duchess Gloriana XII, said to be still in mourning for her consort "Count Leopold of Bosnia Herzegovina". The country of Bosnia and Herzegovina was at that time absorbed within the Republic of Yugoslavia, then under Communist rule. It is likely that many viewers thought "Bosnia Herzegovina" was as fictitious as Grand Fenwick. Bosnia and Herzegovina only became a sovereign nation again in 1992, after the Balkans conflict had resulted in the break-up of Yugoslavia.

[edgar]

Used to working with Otto Preminger, who would scream at her even before the first take to get the performance he wanted, Jean Seberg had trouble adapting to Jack Arnold's gentler directing style. It often took as many as 20 takes for her to get through a scene.

[harry]

Jean Seberg only had one line in the first scene shot, which she shared with Peter Sellers and Leo McKern. For the first several takes, she stepped forward for her line, then back when she was finished. When Arnold pointed this out to her, she said she didn't even know she was doing it. By the time she got her movements under control, she couldn't remember the line. After 25 takes, Arnold postponed the scene until a few days later.