The Absent-Minded Professor

For the stock character, see absent-minded professor.
Not to be confused with The Nutty Professor.
The Absent-Minded Professor

1961 Theatrical Poster
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Produced by Bill Walsh
Walt Disney
Written by Bill Walsh
Based on A Situation of Gravity
1922 short story 
by Samuel W. Taylor
Starring Fred MacMurray
Nancy Olson
Music by George Bruns
Cinematography Edward Colman
Edited by Cotton Warburton
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Distribution
Release dates
 March 16, 1961
Running time
 97 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $25,381,407

The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 American film distributed by Walt Disney Productions based on the short story "A Situation of Gravity" by Samuel W. Taylor. The title character was based in part on Hubert Alyea, a professor emeritus of chemistry at Princeton University, who was known as "Dr. Boom" for his explosive demonstrations. The film stars Fred MacMurray as Professor Ned Brainard.

The film was a huge success at the box-office, and two years later became the first Disney film to have a sequel, 1963's Son of Flubber.

The original 1961 film was one of the first Disney films to be colorized (for the 1986 video release), and, along with 1959's The Shaggy Dog and 1963's Son of Flubber, it is one of Disney's few black-and-white films to be produced after 1941.

Plot

Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) (pronounced BRAY-nerd) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Brainard names his discovery Flubber, which is a portmanteau of "flying rubber." In the excitement of his discovery, he misses his own wedding to Betsy Carlisle (Nancy Olson), not for the first time, but his third. Subplots include another professor wooing the disappointed Miss Carlisle, Biff Hawk's (Tommy Kirk) ineligibility for basketball due to failing Brainard's class, Alonzo Hawk's (Keenan Wynn) schemes to gain wealth by means of Flubber, the school's financial difficulties and debt to Mr. Hawk, and Brainard's attempts to interest the government and military in uses for Flubber. Shelby Ashton (Elliott Reid), who was interested in Betsy, is given his revenge by the Professor, who keeps on jumping on the top of Shelby's car, until it crashes into a police car, where he is given a field sobriety test.

Looking for backers, he bounces his Flubber ball for an audience, but his investment pitch proves so long-winded that most of the crowd has left before they notice that the ball bounced higher on its second bounce than on its first. For a more successful demonstration, he makes his Model T fly by bombarding Flubber with radioactive particles. Other adventures and misadventures result as Flubber is used on the bottoms of basketball players' shoes (in a crucial game) giving them tremendous jumping ability; Brainard (at a school dance) making him an accomplished dancer, and the scheming businessman Alonzo Hawk, who switches cars on the professor, with a car containing a squirrel and pigeons. Hawk then must be tackled by a full football team to bring him down after Brainard tricks him into testing Flubber on the bottom of his shoes. The Professor retrieves the old Model T from the warehouse, and Hawk is arrested for having a gun in his possession, when the car crashes into a police car. Eventually, Brainard shows his discovery to the government, after being scared by a missile in flight, and also wins back Miss Carlisle, culminating in a wedding at last.

Cast

Actor Role
Fred MacMurray Professor Ned Brainard
Nancy Olson Betsy Carlisle
Keenan Wynn Alonzo P. Hawk
Tommy Kirk Biff Hawk
Leon Ames President Rufus Daggett
Elliott Reid Professor Shelby Ashton
Edward Andrews Defense Secretary
David Lewis General Singer
Jack Mullaney Air Force Captain
Belle Montrose Mrs. Chatsworth
Wally Brown Coach Elkins
Wally Boag TV Newsman
Don Ross Lenny
Forrest Lewis Officer Kelley
James Westerfield Officer Hanson
Gage Clarke Reverend Bosworth
Alan Hewitt General Hotchkiss
Raymond Bailey Admirial Olmstead
Ed Wynn Fire Chief

Production notes

The aforementioned Prof. Alyea (1903–1996), professor of chemistry at Princeton University, earned the nickname "Dr. Boom" from Russian observers of his demonstrations at the International Science Pavilion of the Brussels World's Fair in the 1950s, which had Walt Disney in attendance. Disney told Alyea that he had given him an idea for a movie, and invited Alyea to California to give a demonstration for actor Fred MacMurray, who later mimicked Alyea's mannerisms for the film. MacMurray would later state that he had never understood chemistry until his meeting with Alyea.[1]

The special effects were created by Robert A. Mattey and Eustace Lycett, who were nominated for an Academy Award, and included the sodium screen matte process, as well as miniatures and wire-supported mockups. The film's "Medfield Fight Song" was written by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, their first song for a Disney feature.

Ed Wynn and son Keenan Wynn appear together in this film. The elder Wynn plays the Fire Chief (an inside joke, as Wynn hosted the popular radio program The Fire Chief for most of the 1930s). Keenan also played Alonzo Hawk in Son of Flubber (1963) and again in Herbie Rides Again (1974). Keenan's son Ned also appears uncredited in a bit part.

Medfield College of Technology was used again as the setting for the sequel, Son of Flubber, as well as a later trilogy of Disney "Dexter Riley" films: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975), each starring Kurt Russell and Cesar Romero.

Awards

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards:[2]

Releases

The film was reissued to theaters in 1967 and 1975, and released to video in 1981, 1986, and 1993. It was released as a pan and scan print on VHS in black and white in 1981 and 1993, and in a colorized version in 1986, after successful airings on the Disney Channel in March of that year. In 2003, the film finally got a widescreen treatment: The Walt Disney laserdisc #028AS is letterboxed to produce a 1.85:1 aspect ratio format. In 2008 the film was released in the United States as part of a two-disc set with its sequel, Son of Flubber.

Legacy

Sequel

This film was followed by a sequel Son of Flubber, released less than two years later in 1963 also featuring MacMurray, Olson, Reid, and Kirk reprising their roles. Hewitt also returns (now as District Attorney), as well as the three Wynns (Keenan reprising his Alonzo Hawk role, Ed Wynn as a Hank Kimball-like county agent, and Ned as the student manager of Rutland's football team).

Remakes

The Absent-Minded Professor has been remade twice, once as a 1988 television version with Harry Anderson and Mary Page Keller as the renamed characters Prof. Henry Crawford and Ellen Whitley; and once more as a theatrical film titled, Flubber, with the late Robin Williams as the renamed Prof. Philip Brainard, with Marcia Gay Harden as his love interest, Dr. Sara Jean Reynolds (Nancy Olson appears in a cameo). Neither remake was as successful or is as highly regarded as the original, but the 1997 Robin Williams version was still a considerable success. Both remakes were made in color.

Chemistry

Several rubbery chemical compounds are named Flubber in honor of the Absent-Minded Professor's substance.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Official Princeton Obituary: Hubert Alyea, Innovator in Science Teaching, Dies at 93
  2. ↑ "NY Times: The Absent-Minded Professor". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-12-24.
  3. ↑ Parratore, Phil. Wacky Science: A Cookbook for Elementary Teachers. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt. p. 26. ISBN 0-7872-2741-2.

External links

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