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How have I never heard about this movie until this year? I actually discovered it by a happy mistake. I was sitting in the lobby of my chiropractor's office, waiting, and playing Tetris on my phone. I couldn't see the TV but could hear what was going on, and what I heard was the pleasantly familiar voice of Dean Jones talking about using NASA monkeys to pick olives from trees on an olive farm in France. What the?? I forgot about it and forgot to ask the receptionists about it, but months later finally remembered to look up Dean Jones and found this movie. I don't know how I managed to see all of the other kooky 1960s flicks like the Misadventures of Merlin Jones but missed this one.

Well, maybe I know how. It's not necessarily as good as the other movies, but is still entertaining in its own right. Dean Jones plays an American man who inherits an olive farm in France and moves there to enter the olive business. He was formerly a space monkey trainer and buys his old trainees from NASA to employ them as olive pickers on his farm. The first person he meets out there is none other than a priest played by Maurice Chevalier. The priest encourages and aids him when the town's other business men plot to take down his monkey-picking business because they are afraid of the competition. And there's a girl. Of course there's a girl.

As far as plots go, this is perhaps the most bizarre one I've seen come from Disney. Yet, I'm thinking kids would probably be entertained by it, especially since the monkeys (actually chimps) eventually get put in dresses (yes, they're all female). Add to that a couple of pleasant songs from father Chevalier, and it all comes together.

Let's talk about Dean Jones. First off, it's frightening that when you look up Dean Jones on imdb, the first result is not the actor featured in several classic films--it's a makeup artist. Jones seems so young to me in this movie, but looking it up I see that he did The Ugly Dachshund and That Darn Cat before this one, so perhaps I just thought of him as being older when I was a younger person. He has a friendly face and great screen presence. Honestly, only an actor like him could get away with making the plot of this movie seem somewhat believable.

While the movie suffers from some slow moments and a general "what the heck?" sentiment from the audience, I had a good enough time watching it and am glad I found out about it. It won't rank as high as some of the other classics from this Disney time period, but I'd watch it again, and the songs are darn catchy, even when they're sung in French.