Francis In the Navy

Genre: Comedy
Released: 1955
Directed by: Arthur Lubin
Starring: Donald O'Connor, Richard Erdman, Martha Hyer, Jim Backus, David Janssen, Martin Milner, Clint Eastwood.
Alfalfa portrays: A ringside timekeeper who is pestered by Francis the Talking Mule.
Alfalfa's screen time: 48 seconds
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: 4

"Francis In the Navy" and images © MCA Universal Home Video.


Timekeeper Alfalfa struggles to get Francis the Talking Mule
to take its hoof off his hammer.

In this, the next-to-last installment of the "Francis the Talking Mule" series, Alfalfa plays a ringside timekeeper of a boxing match featuring an overmatched Donald O'Connor (who plays a dual role, Lt. Peter Stirling, and "Slicker Donevan", in his boxing guise.) O'Connor gets hoodwinked into fighting the base boxing champ, a beefy Gus Lesnovich type who clearly could beat O'Connor to a pulp. Enter Francis, who attempts to reverse the inevitable by arranging to replace the rosin in O'Connor's opponent's rosin pail with some kind of slippery substance. After the opponent applies the "rosin" to the soles of his shoes, he glides all over the ring until he eventually falls and gets tangled into the ropes (something Alfalfa surely could have identified with during his days in the Little Rascals.)

Below: "Francis In the Navy" features many actors who
would soon become familiar to film and TV fans. Clockwise
from upper left: Clint Eastwood, Jim "Mr. Howell" Backus,
Martin Milner, and David Janssen.

Another tactic used by the resourceful talking mule is to tie a horseshoe, or muleshoe, to the end of his tail. After being granted to permission to stand at ringside during O'Connor's fight as his mascot, Francis twitches his tail to bang the horseshoe against the bell to end or begin rounds early, according to the situation and O'Connor's status in the fight: in the second round, for example, when O'Connor is in trouble of being knocked out only a minute or so into the round. The referee and ringside spectators blame Alfalfa for ringing the bell prematurely, but he protests his innocence. Moments later, when he has to ring the bell to end a round, Francis steps on it, and Alfalfa and several other servicemen struggle to wrest control away from Francis. Alfalfa winds up jumping on Francis' back and then getting thrown down to the floor, his head hitting the bell with a thud.

Alfalfa's uncredited appearance is customarily brief in this one but he gets an opportunity to engage in some real physical comedy when he climbs onto the back of Francis in his attempt to get his bell hammer back. This is the second military-themed comedy he appeared in during the 50's, the first being WAC From Walla Walla.

Above: Some good head shots of Francis. Below:
Alfalfa takes matters, and Francis, into his own hands.

Based on a novel by David Stern (not the NBA Commissioner), the "Francis" series was the brainchild of Arthur Lubin, who also served as director on all but the final Francis installment, "Francis In the Haunted House", which also featured Mickey Rooney as O'Connor's replacement as hapless Peter Stirling. After discontinuing the "Francis" films, Lubin proceeded seamlessly into developing the similarly-themed "Mr. ED" TV series. The voice of Francis was furnished by Saturday matinee western film actor Chill Wills. In part because Alfalfa's appearance in this film was uncredited, it has only recently come to the attention of 4alfalfa.com.

Above: Looking eerily like Robert
DeNiro in "Raging Bull" (not), Donald
O'Connor takes the ring. Below:
A dazed and confused Alfalfa gets
thrown to the arena floor after
unsuccessfully wrestling Francis.

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