L'astronaute Réticent (1967)

The Reluctant Astronaut (1967) is a Universal Pictures feature film produced and directed by Edward Montagne and starring Don Knotts in a story about a kiddie-ride operator who is hired as a janitor at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and is eventually sent into space.

Comedian Knotts had won several Emmy Awards as small-town comic sheriff's deputy Barney Fife in the 1960-1968 television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show but left the show as a regular at the end of its fifth season (1964–1965) to pursue a career in feature films with Universal Pictures. The Reluctant Astronaut followed Knotts' first Universal film venture, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966). Actor Paul Hartman appears in the film and would later star in The Andy Griffith Show. The film's screenplay writers Jim Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum had served as teleplay writers for the television series.

Synopsis

Don Knotts est Roy Fleming, un opérateur de kiddie-ride de la petite ville qui a peur des hauteurs. Après avoir appris que son père l'avait inscrit au programme spatial, Roy se rend à contrecoeur à Houston, mais découvre en arrivant que son travail est un concierge et non un astronaute. Soucieux de répondre aux attentes de son père dominateur, Roy parvient à garder une façade d'astronaute à sa famille et ses amis. Lorsque la NASA décide de lancer un profane dans l'espace pour prouver la valeur d'un nouvel engin spatial automatisé, Roy a l'occasion de confronter ses peurs.

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