"Francis Joins the WACS" is Donald O'Connor's and Chill Wills' penultimate Francis film. While the studio would make two more films in the series, inexplicably, the final one stars Mickey Rooney and an all new voice for Francis, Paul Frees. Considering the series had seen better days and continuity was simply a mess!
In the first film, "Francis", Pete (Donald O'Connor) is a lieutenant in the Army. Later, in "Francis Goes to West Point", Pete now is attending West Point...which is odd as he already WAS an officer in the Army. To make things more confusing, in the next film, Pete is a reporter and there's no mention of his prior military service...even though West Point graduates owe the military eight years of service! Now in "Francis Joins the WACS", Pete is back in the military...but wow is the plot difficult to believe...even for a Francis the Talking Mule film!
When the story begins, Pete has been reactivated in the Army, and you assume he's in the Army Reserves. But through a bizarre clerical error, he's assigned to a WAC unit (consisting of only women)! And, once more, the military thinks Pete is insane.
Clearly, even for the Francis films, the plot is amazingly tough to believe. In fact, it feels as if the series had long jumped the shark and was breathing on fumes. Amazingly, the next film, which didn't star O'Connor or Chill Wills, was actually very good and breathed a bit of life into the series. Of all the movies, "Francis Joins the WACS" is possibly the weakest and least enjoyable.
