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THE INCREDIBLE MR LIMPET
Rating: 
USA. 1964.
Director – Arthur Lubin, Screenplay – Jameson Brewer & John C. Rose, Adaptation – Joe di Mona, Based on the Novel by Theodore Pratt, Producer – Rose, Photography – Harold Stine, Music – Frank Perkins, Animation Supervisor – Vladimir Tytla, Art Direction – LeRoy Deane. Production Company – Warners.
Cast:
Don Knotts (Henry Limpet), Carole Cook (Bessie Limpet), Jack Weston (George Stickel), Andrew Duggan (General Harlick)
Plot: Downtrodden clerk Henry Limpet is obsessed with fish, he believing that as man once evolved from the fish so shall he one day so return to the oceans. He becomes unhappy after his wife orders him to remove all his fish from the house. While on a seaside picnic, he falls off a pier into the ocean. Under the water he suddenly devolves back into a porpoise. He finds that he has now developed a powerful roar and is able to use it to fulfil his wish of becoming a hero by helping the Allied warships destroy German U-boats.
The Incredible Mr Limpet was a film vehicle for Don Knotts, a popular comic of the era. Knotts emerged out of stand-up in the early era of live television and then made the move to drama. He endeared himself to audiences with his continuing role as Deputy Barney Fife on the popular The Andy Griffith Show (1960-8), where he honed the role of the hapless, elastic-faced klutz. During this time Knotts also made various tentative steps out onto the big-screen with the likes of The Ghost and Mrs Chicken (1965), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968) and this, most of which proved to be box-office flops. Knott’s nervous screen presence failed to really endear itself to audiences and in the 1970s and beyond Knotts retired into the twilight hinterlands of supporting parts in various tv sitcoms and Disney live-action comedies.
The Incredible Mr Limpet is a very silly film. The very premise – man devolves into a porpoise – usually leaves people scratching their heads. It comes filled with all sorts of patriotic nonsense, but it is not without a certain charm. Once Knotts attains his fishy state and the film goes underwater, it becomes animated. The real appeal here comes in the fine intermingling of animation and live-action, a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988). The use of real cruisers and U-boats, whether stock or documentary footage or model, is made to blend in exceptionally well. Knotts works with an amiable hangdog expression and the film proves quite genial, indeed is the only one of Knotts’s screen outings that is in any way likable.
In recent years the idea of a remake featuring Jim Carrey was briefly floated.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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