Francis the Talking Mule

Francis the Talking Mule was a mule character who became a celebrity during the 1950s after he starred in seven popular Universal Pictures film comedies. The character originated in the 1946 novel Francis by former U.S. Army Captain David Stern III (1909–2003), son of newspaper publisher J. David Stern. After another studio turned down the property, Universal bought the rights for a film series, with Stern adapting his own script for the first entry, simply titled Francis.

From the Francis Book Jacket:

David Stern says: "When I joined the Army in 1943, I had been publishing a couple of newspapers. I told this to the classification interviewer, who dutifully recorded my civilian background on a large card. They say the Army always finds the job to fit the man. I was assigned as assistant on a garbage truck.

"Circumstances led me, via Officer Candidate School, to Hawaii, where I was assigned as Co-Officer-in-Charge of an Army newspaper called MIDPACIFICAN. One night I was sitting looking at a blank, unpainted wall. To pass the time I wrote four pages of dialogue between a second lieutenant and an Army mule. I had no intention of writing more. But that little runt of a mule kept bothering me. With memories of OCS fresh in my mind I thought I might rid myself of the creature by shipping him off to become a second lieutenant. Francis outwitted me. He refused to go".

Under the nom de plume of Peter Stirling, Stern wrote several short stories for Esquire about a nameless, brand-new U. S. Army 2nd lieutenant fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma. Following the war, he connected three of the stories, "I Meet Francis", "Francis and the Golden", and "Francis Unmasked" into the 1946 novel Francis.

In 1948 Stern published a sequel, Francis Goes to Washington with the former lieutenant, now named Peter Sterling running for Congress with the help of Francis. Stern gave up fiction writing to become editor of the New Orleans Item, a newspaper he purchased in 1949 and ran until 1958.

The book and film series focused on the exploits of Francis, an experienced Army mule, and Peter Stirling (played by Donald O'Connor), the young soldier whom he befriends (and stays with through civilian life and then back into the military). In the original 1950 film the mule identifies himself to the commanding general as "Francis...123rd Mule Detachment...[serial number] M52519". With a plot device like the later series Mister Ed, Francis would usually only talk to Peter, thus causing problems for his nominal "master". The first six films were directed by Universal comedy veteran Arthur Lubin, previously known for helming Abbott and Costello vehicles, who would go on to produce and direct Mister Ed for television.

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