petersj-2
It was years ago when I saw this great movie in the cinema and I can recall the belly laughs. Viewing again I was surprised and delighted that it is still hilariously funny. You don't get those belly laughs that often. THe basket ball game with the flubber is a scream, I was sick with laughter. The effects are as stunning now as when I first saw it. As for those scenes in the car it s simply amazing. I was surprised to see the film in colour as I thought it was in black and white, perhaps I am thinking of reruns on TV. Fred McMurray was perfect. You actually don't like him at first because missing the wedding three times is an incredibly cruel thing to do but once you see his passion for inventing and the love he really has for his fiancé it really does not matter. You warm to the character and he is just perfect for the role. Nancy Olson is no sickly sweet Disney leading lady and she gives a lively spirited performance. I used to hate it when women just stood back in fight scenes biting their hands looking terrified but Nancy is actually a gutsy gal. Keenan Wynn is a fine nasty and there's a lovely little cameo by the great Ed Wynn, Keenan's incredibly famous father. The gorgeous and brilliantly talented Tommy Kirk is there too. What a superb talent this guy was. I hope he is still alive and doing well. Tommy was loved by many fans! I loved the reliable older actors especially the two cops, great performances and of course the wonderful house keeper or maid. Its a gem.
bkoganbing
The Absentminded Professor was the second film that Fred MacMurray in his second career rebirth with Walt Disney as the midwife. He scored an enormous success in The Shaggy Dog and Disney films together with his My Three Sons TV series established MacMurray as the quintessential family father figure which would endure for the rest of his life.I do remember seeing this in the theater back as a youngster and back then the younger ones in the crowd were looking at Tommy Kirk who was at the height of his Disney popularity. Nevertheless MacMurray gives a delightful performance as science professor Ned Brainerd who's accidentally invented a variation on rubber which has a great deal more bounce to it.He's so wrapped up in his experiment that he's even forgetting his wedding day to Nancy Olson, AGAIN. She's about had it with him and ready to fall for the wolfish English professor Elliott Reid.MacMurray has his own troubles. Other than helping his college win a basketball game with a team that they are way overmatched against, he's not quite decided what use this stuff he calls flubber is good for. But wealthy Keenan Wynn sure wants to get his hands on it.Funniest sequence in the film is Keenan Wynn after MacMurray and Olson trick him into wearing flubberized shoes is seeing bounce slowly into the stratosphere before a quick thinking Tommy Kirk devises a way to counteract his flubberized dad.The AbsentMinded Professor was so popular with audiences that Disney did another version with almost the entire same cast in Son of Flubber.That one was almost as funny, but this still has a lot of laughs even after almost fifty years.
ccthemovieman-1
Some parts of this are very funny, some parts are silly stupid and all parts are very dated and make little sense. Maybe that's why someone figured a re-make was appropriate. That, and the fact that it's still a very entertaining movie, almost a classic. The re-make was done in 1997 with the movie, "Flubber."Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk.....wow, there are some familiar names from the '50s and '60s Olson had lost her youthful looks from "Sunset Boulevard," but that had been a decade earlier. MacMurray didn't look a whole lot different from his 1944 film noir classic of "Double Indemnity," proving once again how much better men age than women.Kids of today would still laugh at this film, although they have dead spots in here which are not prevalent in modern-day films.
rebeljenn
The Absent-Minded Professor was a typical Disney classic that I watched when I was younger. In short, this film is about a professor who creates an anti-gravity substance known as 'flubber'. This substance makes his car fly, sort of reminiscent of the car in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'. Of course, someone is trying to kidnap this idea, and it's up to some children to save the day.I am not sure what children today would think of this film, but I did find it enjoyable, and I would have seen it in the mid-1980s. I would like to think that children today would find it just as enjoyable and entertaining.
AD
