Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)

The Worst Film Ever

Good concept, poorly executed.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

From where I was sitting this "one-note-joke" definitely had a lot more going against it than it did have going for it.Yes. I do fully realize that this "boy-meets-girl" comedy was an undeniable product of the early 1960s - But, all the same, as far as an "adult" oriented farce goes, its outright sexual naivety (on top of its lame attempts at cuteness) reduced it to the calibre of being a mediocre Disney production.Containing way too many "you-got-the-wrong-idea" situations, this contrived comedy was more irritating than it was funny.Not only that, but I found that the characters were played by actors (such as Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss) who were about 10 years too old for their parts. And this made the whole story even less believable, in the long run.Besides all of the above complaints, this picture (which contained some really irksome, half-wit banter) ran on for far too long at 122 minutes.Man's Favorite Sport's story centres around Abercrombie & Fitch employee, Roger Willoughby, who (though he's apparently an "expert" on the sport of fishing) has never fished in his entire life (but nobody knows this).Through a chance meeting with Abigail Page, co-owner of the Wakapoogee Lake lodge, Roger reluctantly finds himself entered into the lodge's fishing tournament.And from this point onwards this film's story gets more and more bogged down by inane stupidity with each passing minute.Thrown into this mundane mix is the story's token-Indian, Johnny Screaming Eagle, whose sole mission is to nickel & dime anyone (and everyone) out of their money.Ha! Ha! So funny, I forgot to laugh!

This movie has been running on one of my local stations as if it were the only movie they have. I have tried t watch it all the way through and just cannot. It's painful. Hudson phones in his performance. The movie has none of the sparkle of his films with Doris Day, for example. As a matter of fact, this same channel has been running several of Hudson's films of this ilk, including one with Gina Lolabrigida -- again just awful. I always liked the Prentiss sisters as well as Hudson but like many of the films of of this genre starring Jack Lemon, this one was just a snore. I think Hudson works best in comedy when he plays kind of dumb. I didn't get any chemistry between the stars. I simply cannot recommend it.

Yes, there are a lot of laughs here as so-called fishing expert,Roger Willoughby, played with finesse by Rock Hudson, in his usual style, gets into all sorts of predicaments. The expert is drawn into a fishing contest at a resort owned by Paula Prentiss's father. From his first encounter with Prentiss over a parking space, she puts him into a series of situations that while humorous have predictable outcomes.Hudson shows humility at the end by confessing that he has never fished.John MacGyver, as his boss, is mainly funny, not so much because of his usual speech pattern, but rather because of the wig that he has on is always out of place.You know what the ending is going to be before half way through the film.

I'm not a film critic, just a 56 year old viewer; call me the common man that's not too common. I'll just use words that everyone understands, since I don't know all the others. What this film did for me is it brought back the feel of the late 50s / early 60s, you know, when there used to be a few morals left. Some of you may remember those days. You could see this throughout the whole movie, the way they talked, dressed and acted toward each other. Even the city and the cars and the mailboxes on the corner (remember those?) in the opening scene, everything was bright, clean and wholesome. The atmosphere at Lake Wakapougie(?) was clear and made you wish you were there too. Even in the lodge: No one had tattoos, no men were wearing earrings. Can you imagine that?! No men with long hair? No Mohawks? Is this legal?! No one weighed 350 pounds and looked like a World War 3 surviving shopper in Walmart. Just a nice, easy to follow, fun and relaxing movie complete with great background music that fit it perfectly, sweet and calm. What a contrast to what we have now. If the film were to be made now, Rock would probably have been a drug smuggler and would have had a long bedroom scene with everyone of the stars in the opening scene, complete with as much swearing as they could possibly have stuck in there just to make sure the movie would go over. I mean, they do have to sell movies, right?! Do I exaggerate? What do you think? This is the main reason I like this film so much. It's just a nice, sweet and wholesome film about a guy and girl who accidentally fall in love through a great setup. Yet the people aren't perfect, neither is the film. I haven't found a perfect one yet. The only semi-negatives I could find, were the obvious tie-attached-to-Easy scene, yet it was funny.(I missed how that happened until I backed up and watched it again...if you recall, people in the movies back then couldn't do that) also, there is a time sequence I didn't get. Abigail calls Roger at, I think, 2 in the morning, yet everyone is still up like it's 10PM at night! ... The guys at the bar who also have to be up in 3 hours for the competition, John Screaming Eagle... everybody except Roger. That's another thing I thought was a little strange although it added comedy to the film. John Screaming Eagle is always keeping an eye on Roger's 'happenings'. Even at 2AM? and no one is even yawning, they're raring to go like they all just got up! ha ha. I sure can't do that. Not at 2 in the morning. All in all though, what a great film. and yeah, I saw the other films the were mentioned, like "Bringing Up Baby". I'll take this one over that one, although I liked "Bringing Up Baby" as well. What made a lot of the older films great was great dialog, great direction, great story lines. grate acting and fresh ideas. This has almost entirely been replaced in today's movies with massive swearing, constant drugs, rotten personalities, sex, sex, sex. Yes, today's films are truly designed for today's people. I guess the studios still know what they're doing after all!