The Reluctant Astronaut
| The Reluctant Astronaut | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Edward J. Montagne, Jr. |
| Produced by | Edward J. Montagne, Jr. |
| Written by | James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum |
| Starring |
Don Knotts Leslie Nielsen Joan Freeman |
| Music by | Vic Mizzy |
| Cinematography | Rex Wimpy |
| Edited by | Sam E. Waxman |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1,500,000 (US/ Canada) |
The Reluctant Astronaut is a 1967 Universal Pictures feature film produced and directed by Edward Montagne and starring Don Knotts in a story about a carnival ride operator who is hired as a janitor at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and is eventually sent into space.
Comedian Knotts had won several Emmy Awards as small-town comic sheriff's deputy Barney Fife in the 1960-1968 television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show but left the show as a regular at the end of its fifth season (1964–1965) to pursue a career in feature films with Universal Pictures. The Reluctant Astronaut followed Knotts' first Universal film venture, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). Actor Paul Hartman appears in the film and would later star in The Andy Griffith Show. The film's screenplay writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum had served as teleplay writers for the television series.
Roy Fleming (Don Knotts) is fairground operator of a kiddie-spaceship ride in Sweetwater, Missouri. Despite being 35 years old, he still lives with his parents and suffers from extreme acrophobia (fear of heights). His father Arbuckle (Arthur O'Connell) wants better things for his son, so he sends an application to NASA. Roy later learns from his mother (Jeanette Nolan) that NASA has accepted him as a "WB-1074".
When Roy arrives at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, supervisor Donelli (Jesse White) places him in training as a janitor. Roy accepts the disappointment and unsuccessfully tries to explain things to his family back home, who believe that he is an astronaut. Meanwhile, he is befriended by veteran astronaut Major Fred Gifford (Leslie Nielsen). One day, Roy is alarmed to discover that his father and his friends, Plank (Frank McGrath) and Rush (Paul Hartman) are paying him a surprise visit at work. Anxious to please his domineering father, he dons a space suit and pretends to be an astronaut. Arbuckle, a World War I veteran, tells his friends, "he is proud Roy is now serving his nation." After wreaking general havoc on the simulators and other hardware, Roy is exposed as a janitor by Donelli and summarily fired in the presence of his father.
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Wikipedia