Francis Goes to the Races
Donald O'Connor's second of six "Francis" movies.,Francis the Talking Mule: By the tail of my Great Aunt Regret, I oughta kick your teeth in!,Featured in 100 Years of Comedy (1997),My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean
(uncredited)
Traditional Scottish folk song
Sung by Chill Wills and Donald O'Connor
Whistled by Donald O'Connor,This is the second in the Francis, the talking mule series. Picking up from the first one, we find Peter Stirling (Donald O'Connor) fired from his banking job. He ends up at some stable with some owner of a horse and his daughter-Frances, yes, they went there-who's played by a pretty young woman named Piper Laurie. As before, the premise is that Peter knows some info and when he's asked by various people, he hesitates at first because he knows they won't believe him but since they insists, he tells and is of course, isn't! This gets repetitious after a while so the only real laughs one gets from this is mainly at what wisecracks Chill Wills is made to say and the way he says them. Still, this was a pretty enjoyable entry and I liked hearing O'Connor sing a little at the end. So on that note, Francis Goes to the Races was pretty enjoyable. P.S. It was a nice surprise to see Hayden Rourke-best known to me as Dr. Bellows on "I Dream of Jeannie"-as one of the players. Also, Jesse White-best known to me as the Maytag repair man-as well.,