MOVIE REVIEW
The Mouse That Roared, the Football and the Marshall Plan
“My idea was sound. Only an idiot could have won this war, and he did.” — Prime Minister Count Rupert Mountjoy
In one of the books I was reading this summer, a book about the White House Chiefs of Staff, the crazy events surrounding the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan were detailed. There had been no protocol in place when the shooting occurred so things got chaotic. A frazzled Alexander Haig, clearly rattled and out of breath from running up a flight of stairs, announced in the press room, “I’m in control here.”
Another fragment of the story had to do with a reference to the “Football.” In Cold War parlance the Football is a briefcase containing the nuclear release-code sequences that is always at the President’s side. Was the stressed out Haig saying he had the Football so everything was under control? That was a scary thought.
Reading this prompted me to seek out the satirical 1959 film The Mouse That Roared, because I seemed to recall a football being part of the story in a significant way. I had no idea that the movie’s football-shaped Q-Bomb was actually a reference to something in real life.
