Don Knotts – Reluctant Hero Pack (2004)

Review by: Brendon McCullin
Date: 2/15/05

It takes a true appreciator of the comedic arts to truly get the legendary Don Knotts. Sure there are millions of rerun watchers that know and love Knotts’ jittery work in supporting roles as Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show and as Mr. Furley on Three’s Company. True believers, however, know that while his television work offers a masters class in comic timing, it’s his film work that provides the full force of his talent.

Universal’s DVD set Don Knotts: Reluctant Hero Pack offers the uninitiated a quick and comprehensive way to discover the genius of Knotts. The set of four films, condensed onto two discs, features three of Knotts’ best big screen performances in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut and The Shakiest Gun In the West.

Perhaps his best film, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) takes full advantage of Knotts' herky-jerky style. Knotts plays small town newspaper typesetter Luther Heggs, who longs to be a writer. With some pushing from a too knowledgeable janitor, he ends up spending the night in a haunted house to get the big story and, well, as they say, hilarity ensues. In addition to using every muscle in his body to convey Heggs jumpy fright, Knotts gets to play off the paper’s real writer and resident jerk (Skip Homeier) and stammer around the object of his affection (Joan Staley). The story’s simple and the budget miniscule, but Knotts crams every bit of his familiar character into Heggs, giving a tour de force performance. It also offers Bewitched fans a rare film look at Darren #2, Dick Sargent, playing Knotts’ newspaper boss.

The Shakiest Gun In the West (1968) is really a remake of the Bob Hope-Jane Russell classic The Paleface, with Knotts taking on the Hope role of a fresh from the East dentist that accidentally, and fraudulently, becomes a gunfighter. The movie doesn’t reach the heights of the original, but the story remains funny enough to make it one of the most satisfying offerings in the Knotts oeuvre. Female lead Barbara Rhoades, playing the real gunfighter, might not be Jane Russell, but she manages to fill out the Old West costumes pleasantly enough.

The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) offers a title that is fairly self-explanatory. Knotts plays Roy Fleming, a small town guy without aspirations, signed up for a NASA program by his pushy father. There is, of course, a mix-up causing his father and hometown to believe that he’s an astronaut in training, while in fact he’s been hired in Houston as a janitor. While trying to keep up the charade, he ends up being picked for an “average citizen in space” assignment, which complicates matters, especially since he’s afraid of heights. Hokey as it all might be, the sight of Knotts skinny frame in a full-out space suit is still laugh-out-loud funny.

The sets fourth film – The Love God? (1969) – is dated in a way that the other films are not. While the others can be viewed as quaint, The Love God? is both too much of it’s time and severely flawed. Knotts is a small-time publisher of a bankrupt bird watching magazine that’s duped into turning over his mailing rights to the publisher of skin mags. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s the pawn in a First Amendment battle, being painted as a “filthy little pornographer” and becoming a celebrity because of it. While Knotts’ movies tend to be one-joke affairs, this one’s only funny visual – surrounding a skittish Knotts with buxom beauties – gets old quickly as does the entire story.

The DVD set offers little in the way of extras, save for the original theatrical trailers for the films, but then again it’s four full-length Don Knotts’ films for one low price – that’s worth sacrificing almost any extra, save for perhaps a commentary by the legend himself.

(Brendon McCullin is a staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)