The Reluctant Astronaut (Universal Pictures) (1967)

KNOTTS PREFERS SITUATIONS TO GAGS FOR LAUGHS When it comes to milking audiences for laughs Hollywood's newest comedian, Don Knotts, hews to the oldest tradition. He eschews gags in favor of situations. He says a sight piece of business -even a basic pratfall -is worth far more than any kind of dialogue, and offers his current title role in Universal's "The Reluctant Astronaut" as a Technicolor case in point. Co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Joan Freeman, Jeanette Nolan and Arthur O'Connell, it comes ....... to the weeeees Theatre. Some of his most rib-tickling scenes, he believes, are those in which for all practical purposes he might as well be making an old-fashioned silent. Knotts, whose role in "The Reluctant Astronaut" is that of a timid soul, afraid of heights, who finds himself embarked on a hazardous flight into outer space, explains that the gag has its rightful place as a comedy device but falls short in that it seldom contributes to characterization building. As he demonstrated in his initial Universal feature, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,'' which turned boxoffice turnstiles at a giddy pace, Knotts’ forte is the credibility of his portrayal of a nervous bumbler who somehow manages to overcome insuperable obstacles. In "The Reluctant Astronaut" almost all that he touches turns out wrong, and it becomes believable, he thinks, because he so thoroughly establishes the impression that he's so unsure of himself. If critics note a resemblance between Knotts' escapades in his current vehicle and those which usually befell Harold Lloyd in his films it is not, according to the comedian, solely by chance. "Our story," he says, "is basically a Lloyd type vehicle, and if anyone should draw a comparison I would be enormously flattered." # # #