Francis Goes to the Races

I have to agree with JoeKarlosi on this: This second installment of the Francis series is inferior to the already ordinary first installment. While the film does have its moments, they are far too few and far between.

The first film was more interesting as the entire film presents the curiously absurb encounter of Peter Stirling's with Francis the Talking Mule. The plot also pays more attention to the progress of their friendship which makes the film more heartfelt.

Here in its sequel, there are less laughs and the story just drags on and on until it ends conveniently with a similar conclusion in the first film. Donald O'Connor, who plays the central character Peter Stirling, was given almost nothing to work on here. Even more dreadful is the fact that Francis, the title character, was delegated to a supporting role here. Not that Francis enjoyed a lot of screen time in the first film, but he appeared in all the key scenes and his role was crucial to the plot. Here, his screen time was cut down to a quarter of the film's running time and his role was not even substantial to the plot: He was merely tagging along.

My disappointment not withstanding, I did not regret watching the sequel as I enjoyed the first film very much and would like to see how the friendship of the 2 main characters would progress in the next film. I would still watch the rest of the series as this film wasn't so bad as to spoil the first film for me.

P.S. My rating for the first Francis movie is 7 out of 10.