.] And the film does not seem to have been transferred to
DVD, though I did find a copy of the equally funny sequel, The Mouse
on the Moon. Our growing amnesia is unfortunate, both because
this is just a funny story, and also because current events reveal it to
still be timely.
The tale concerns the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a tiny European nation
which "lies in a precipitous fold of the northern Alps." It was founded
in 1370 by British soldier of fortune Roger Fenwick, under not altogether
honorable circumstances. Practically the only thing that is
produced there, and the only reason anyone has ever heard of it, is a fine
wine called Pinot Grand Fenwick. Other than this one export, the
nation remains happily isolated, a medieval remnant in the modern world,
ruled over by Duchess Gloriana XII--"a pretty girl of twenty-two" in the
book, a more matronly woman in the film, so that Peter Sellers can play
her--and her prime minister, the Count of Mountjoy (also played by Peter
Sellers).
As the story begins, crisis has descended upon the Grand Duchy in the
form of revenue shortfalls. It is determined that the most effective
way of raising money is to declare war on the United States, the pretext
for which is the introduction of a San Rafael, California winery of a wine
called Pinot Grand Enwick, a provocation that can not be allowed to stand.
As Gloriana explains the aims of the war :
The fact is that there are few more profitable undertakings
for a country in need of money than to declare war on the United States
and be defeated. Hardly an acre of land is
forfeited in such wars.
It is usually agreed, to be sure, that heavy industries
and other installations and activities which could be used in future wars
are
to be dismantled, destroyed and their reestablishment
banned. And it usually evolves that this is not done, because it
is decided that
to follow such a plan would either wreck the economy
of the defeated nation, or make it incapable of defending itself against
other
foes. In either or both cases, the Americans
would feel called upon, such is their peculiar nature, to help out at their
own expense.
Again it is usually decided that the nation and people
which lose to the United States shall be made to suffer national and individual
hardship for the aggression. And the ink is
no sooner dry on such agreements than the United states is rushing food,
machinery,
clothing, money, building materials and technical
aid for the relief of its former foes.
Once more, it is always laid down that the defeated
armies must be disbanded and never again be allowed to reform. But,
a little later,
it is discovered that these armies are in an oblique
but nonetheless definite manner essential to the security of the United
States itself.
Either the defeated enemy must have an army and
navy and air force of its own, or the Americans must remain there in an
indefinite
occupation.
Americans, particularly American soldiers, do not
like to remain long outside their own country. And in a matter of
months, or at most
years, the United States is first requesting and
then begging its former enemies to raise an army to defend their own territory.
It is
not unheard of that these defeated foes are able
to state the terms under which they will raise an army for their own policing
and defense.
Those terms have involved the payment of large
sums of money by the United States, or the extension of generous credits,
revision
of trade agreements in favor of the defeated nation,
return of shipping, rehabilitation of factories destroyed in the war, and
even the gift
of the equipment needed for an army.
All in all, as I said before, there is no more profitable
and sound step for a nation without money or credit to take, than declare
war
on the United States and suffer a total defeat.
It's easy to see why the fortunes of this story changed over the years;
written just a few years after the Marshall Plan, it resonated in an America
that had won WWII and rebuilt its enemies. But in the late 60s and
early 70s, the Left determined that America was evil and that there was
nothing honorable nor humorous about the Cold War, Vietnam, or any of the
other seemingly benign extensions of American power. Wibberley's
witty insight must have seemed the stuff of delusions or insidious propaganda
to folks who had convinced themselves that we were really an imperialist
nation. But now that the "blame America first" crowd has been routed,
you can read that speech above, or watch the movie, and hear the eerie
echoes coming from Afghanistan. What might Mr. Wibberley have made
of the absurd notion that at the same we were bombing the Taliban and Al
Qaeda we were bombing the rest of the Afghanis with food supplies?
And the rest of the war has played out exactly as the Duchess Gloriana
would have predicted--the Taliban had no sooner been routed than we started
pouring in money and rebuilding that broken nation. You could read
through thousands of pages of anti-American screeds by Noam Chomsky, Susan
Sontag, Barbara Kingsolver, and
their ilk, without increasing your understanding of the world by one iota.
But in that one speech, Leonard Wibberley basically explains the entire
20th (or American) Century.
At any rate, Tully Bascombe, chief forest ranger of the Duchy (again
played by Sellers in the film), and twenty longbowmen charter a boat and
invade Manhattan, intending to surrender as quickly as possible.
But by happy coincidence, the whole city is underground for an air raid
test, and when first Tully and his chain mail clad "army" are mistaken
for aliens and then they capture a scientist, Dr. Kokintz, and his super-lethal
quadium (or Q) bomb, Grand Fenwick ends up winning the war. Armed
with the Q bomb, Fenwick forms a League of Little Nations and dictates
its own peace terms and blackmails the U.S. and Russia into a general nuclear
disarmament.
Tully, hero of Fenwick's great victory, of course gets the girl--Dr.
Kokintz's daughter in the film; the Duchess herself in the novel.
This gives Mr. Wibberley one last opportunity for a very amusing, though
thoroughly politically incorrect, observation, as Mountjoy tries to convince
the Duchess that she must take a husband :
'I hope,' said Gloriana warily, 'that you are not
going to suggest that I marry the American minister because I won't do
it.
I've been reading about the Americans in a women's
magazine and they're all cruel to their wives,'
'Cruel to their wives?' echoed the count.
'Precisely. They treat them as equals.
They refuse to make any decisions without consulting them. They load
them up with
worries they should keep to themselves. And
when there isn't enough money, they send them out to work instead of earning
more by their own efforts. Some of them even
make their wives work so they can go to college. They are not men
at all.
They are men-women. And their wives are women-men.
If I am to marry, I want a husband who will be a man and let me
be a woman. I'll be able to handle him better
that way.'
Of course, the ultimate truth of this sharp observation lies in the
final line, Gloriana's certainty that theoretical "equality" is unnecessary
for her to actually control a husband.
Both book and movie are a great deal of fun. They are well worth
seeking out. That their satire is once again applicable to the events
of the day should be reason enough for a revival.
