"What a splendid way to wake up each morning," she old her husband at 5 AM.On that Sunday morning while the Hoggetts went off to church, Ferdinand had become frantic after seeing that Farmer Hoggett""s wife Esme had a new, wind-up alarm clock ("mechanical rooster") positioned at her bedside.You better cool off.""Crash" stood up and announced that he refused o "try out" for Annie as one of her draft picks, telling her: "After 12 years in the minor leagues, I don""t try out.A report here from Mr.Dobisch - says you""re loyal, cooperative, resourceful...And Mr.Kirkeby tells me that several nights a week, you work late at he office without overtime...Mr.Vanderhof in Public Relations and Mr.Eichelberger, in Mortgage and Loan - they both would like to have you transferred to their departments.Due to the film""s raw, controversially-offensive and critical assessment of hypocritical French military and bureaucratic authorities who callously condemn and sacrifice three randomly-chosen innocent men with execution (for cowardice) for their own fatal blunder, it suffered poor box-office returns, and was banned in France and Switzerland for almost twenty years (until the mid-1970s) following its release.