Man's Favorite Sport?

Plot synopsis:
Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) arrives late to his work because a lady has occupied his parking space. He tries to move her car but he only succeeds in getting a parking fine by a police officer (James Westerfield), who doesn't believe his weird story. Roger is a fishing tools expert and shop assistant who has even written a book about the sport. He teaches Major Phipps (Roscoe Karns) how to use a rodding cane at the department store where he works in, at Abercrombie and Fitch, in the fishing sports department. Roger gives him advice which he has heard from somebody else.Roger's customers, Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss) and Isolde 'Easy' Mueller (Maria Perschy), want Roger to participate on the fishing competition in lake C..... Easy is a public relations officer, and Abigail is an important person of the community. Roger will compete against Major Phipps. However, Rock tries to get out of the idea, as he has not idea about fishing. His boss, William Cadwalader (John McGiver) pushes him to win the competition.Abigail and Easy are both interested in Roger, although they realise fast that he has no idea about fishing. They pay John Screaming Eagle (Norman Alden) not to say anything about Roger being useless with fish. John is also a small conman. He isn't unable to put up even his net. Roger's boss pushes Roger to go, so he can't say no. Both girls watch him doing stupid things, and during a lunch together they laugh about a caterpillar which fell onto his salad, and his eating it subsequently.Abby helps Roger, explaining things for him. For example, she recommends him to use a scooter, but it ends up being driven by a bear. Also, when she tries to teach him how to drive a boat to go to the location of the catch, he ends up almost drowning and inside a safety balloon-like trousers, which he doesn't recommend his boss for selling.Roger can't even swim, but Abigail is attracted to him anyway. The frist time Abigail makes him use a fishing cane, he catches a fish. Roger feels disgusted by the slimmy fish. He loses his catch and pushes her into the water. He catches another fish with his baggy clothes after falling to the river. Roger is made to hold a fish for hours as part of his training.Easy tells them that another champion, Filroy from Chicago, is going to compete, so that he can quit. However, Roger knows that he can't say his boss that, so the girls plot to put one of his arms in plaster so that he will have an excuse not to participate. They put the plaster after he has seen her breasts due to the heavy rain. The girls go to meet Filroy, but he is with a broken arm in a plaster, so they can't have Roger hurt at the same time. So now they need to take the plaster out.Roger waits for the call of his girlfriend. Abigail asks for a pill at night as she is interested in him. No surprise, she tries to entice a kiss from him, but he says he has no time. She takes a pill and falls asleep in Roger's room. Furthermore, nobody tells him that Tex Connors (Charlene Holt) is about to arrive the following morning. When she arrives the day of the contest, she sees Easy trying to get Roger out of a stuck sleeping bag. He says that he was trying to try the new equipment. Tex also sees Abigail going out of Roger's room so she almost splits up with him.To win, Roger reads his own book. The book is useless for him. Screaming Eagle watches him as he fishes a fish without even noticing it. Roger is also lucky the second day, when he catches one falling from a tree: a fish commits suicide when the thread gets tangled on a tree brunch. After that, he decides to kiss Abigail, but she pronounces it of poor quality.The third day, the bear scares him causing him to catch another fish. He wins the competition and promises himself never to fish again. He doesn't want to celebrate his win with his boss. A weeping Abigail tells him to "come out" and tell the truth. Mr Bagley (Regis Toomey) and Mr Skaggs (Forrest Lewis), the organizers, hear his confession. He renounces because a bear helped him. Major Phipps has won and Cadwalader fires Roger.Abigail has left. Easy doesn't want to tell him where she is, but he pays to Screaming Eagle to tell him and take him there. Abigail tells him to go away, but she doesn't really want so. A storm is about to break in. Roger finally splits up with Tex. It starts raining, so he gets into her huge sleeping bag.Major Phipps gives Cadwalader an idea: to annouce that if Roger could win with the right equipment, anybody can.It rains so much that Abigail's sleeping bag floats by with them both deeply sleeping on it. Cadwalader even gives a pay rise to Roger.Roger kisses Abigail.CONCLUSIONA sepia-coloured scene: Marcia (Kathie Brown) tells John (unnamed) that he doesn't need to kiss her as the film has already finished.

Tags: entertaining

Review:
In "Man's Favorite Sport", a story about a man who has never fished in his life having to try to win a fishing tournament in order to save his job, he saw a fine opportunity for physical "lazzi" and active scenes; in between the three active scenes of angling and several hilarious misadventures with physical equipment including chairs, inflatable waders and a car-park locale misunderstanding, he also found time to have his writers write some equally memorable dialogue confrontations of many sorts.
The cast in this well-liked and well-remembered comedy include veterans John Mcgyver as the boss, Roscoe Karnes and others as grizzled veteran anglers, Pretty Maria Perschy, Charlene Holt and Paula Prentiss as the women in the hero's life, talented Norma Alden as a hip, wisecracking but lovable Indian, and Rock Hudson as Roger Willoughby, the beleaguered junior exec.
In the film's storyline, however, Hawks faced one impossibility: Roger Willoughby by never fishing had separated his scheme for making clients happy--by using consultants at various sites and departmental experts to supply information and teaching expertise--from his job, being the man who made the entire scheme work.
Strictly speaking, as Paula Prentiss says, Roger is a phony; but this does no alter the workability of the scheme; and the climax--the fishing tournament's outcome, Roger's confessing to his boss and what happens afterward form an exciting, dialogue-rich and memorable conclusion to the side-splitting goings on.
Add flashy titles, low- key music and crisp, clean sets and a knockout comedy performance by all concerned, especially Paula Prentiss, and this film becomes an instant US classic satire..
Life is good for Hudson as the expert fisherman who is big man at Abercrombie and Fitch, until brash Abby Page (Prentiss) destroys his serene existence with a publicity stunt of having Hudson enter an annual fishing contest.After resisting the idea, Hudson is soon forced to confess he's never fished in his life--that his reputation is a hoax.
Some of the gags work better than others; the gags range from leisurely to elaborate, but all in good fun.The fast-talking overlapping dialog is pure Hawks and (the uncredited) Brackett, and is wonderful.Hudson has been criticized for not being Cary Grant (how could anyone be?) but he actually develops his own persona, different from both Grant and his own Hudson-Day characterizations.
But it never quite builds to the same frenetic pace and lacks the absurdity of the situations Grant finds himself in: remember "Mr. Bone?" Hawks does lift sequences right out of _Baby_ when Hudson shadows Perschy because the back of her dress is open, the "Love impulse in men manifests itself in conflict" from Dr. Lehman is used by Easy, the fish in the pants comes out of _Monkey Business_.Yet the films are quite different.
Some reviewers have criticized the studio-bound look (Bringing Up Baby wasn't???), flat, high- key photography, the fact Rock Hudson isn't Cary Grant, that much of the comedy is slapstick (which, I guess, means physical and visual), that gags are recycled from older films......I mean, who cares?
This is a total delight, probably the best comic roles Prentiss and Hudson ever had, and one of the funniest post World War 2 movies of all.
Rock Hudson makes a good figure,but Paula Prentiss and Maria Perschy are even better - they both give incredibly funny,magnificent performances!
The part of Roger Willoughby, who wrote a book on fishing based on hearsay from the various customers he's dealt with at Abercrombie&Fitch, would have been ideal for Cary Grant as it has just the kind of physical comedy that Grant was so adept at.However Rock Hudson steps into the role admirably and for once he's the pursued and not the pursuer.
On a bit of advice from public relations expert Prentiss, Hudson's boss at Abercrombie&Fitch, John McGiver, has him enter a fishing tournament.
When Hudson confesses he's never fished and hates the slimy things, Prentiss decides to help fake it through.There are a lot of really great laughs in this film, but the best scene is Hudson trying out this inflatable suit for those who are fishing and fall in the water.
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.
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.
With this film, Paula Prentiss helped to establish a new role model for women in the 60's, dominated by Doris Day. As Abigail Page, Paula plays a strong-willed young woman who is ready to test herself professionally and sexually with any man.
Rock Hudson was very good too, while Howard Hawks displayed his cinematic know-how in a affectionate and less aggressive version of his screwball comedies of the past.
Gloriously beautiful, sexy, with that great Texas accent Ms. Prentiss was a great sexy comedienne and this is likely her greatest role in Howard Hawks Man's Favorite Sport.
Initially to be filmed at Paramount with Prentiss and Cary Grant, Paramount per legend refused to cast Paula Prentiss, so Howard Hawks took the project to Universal and cast Rock Hudson and Ms. Prentiss.
Paula Prentiss got and deserved equal star billing over the title with box office champ Rock Hudson.
He is shocked to learn his boss has entered him into a fishing contest and doesn't know what to do until Paula Prentiss and Maria Perschy tell him they got him involved and are going to teach him to fish.
There are some scenes that are taken from Bringing Up Baby and Howard Hawks did ask Cary Grant to be in this movie but he said no because he didn't want to be seen on screen with women who a lot younger then he was.
Rock Hudson and Doris Day made a great box office team for comedy romances.
A lot happens at Lake Wakapoogee when sporting goods salesman and how-to fishing author, Roger Willoughby (Hudson), must join the lake's annual fishing contest.
Rock and Paula play awfully well together and it's always a pleasure to see her get more than a few scenes in a film.Howard Hawks had at his disposal not only an attractive cast but also thorough professionals behind the cameras.
Character actors Roscoe Karns, John McGiver, Forrest Lewis, Regis Toomey and Norman Alden each adds professional support to "Man's Favorite Sport?" The Northern California fishing lodge locale likewise is a plus.
Twentieth Century, Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Ball of Fire, I Was a Male War Bride and Monkey Business (the other one) all can still produce wild laughter in an audience all these years later.Hawks was also never afraid of making a film several times to see what else he could do with a story - Rio Bravo, El Dorado and Rio Lobo were all the same picture, and Hawks knew it and wasn't embarrassed about it.Man's Favorite Sport is his last comedy, and it has more than a passing resemblance to Bringing Up Baby.
Once penetrated, we never forget the scar." Paula Prentiss had this effect on me in the early 1960s, and her role in Howard Hawks' 1964 screwball comedy as Abigail Page, was decisive.
In years when Doris Day was a role model for many women, along came Paula as an aggressive and beautiful PR professional announcing the "new woman." This role helped to pave the way for future self-asserted female film characters.
At 24 years old, Paula was placed besides Rock Hudson, a big star who was the masculine prototype for most filmgoers, playing a fake fishing specialist.
Although all the praise usually goes to Paula, Rock Hudson also gave one of his best comedy performances ever, with strong support from Maria Perschy and seasoned Hawks regulars..
starts unpromisingly, with Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss) and an unexplained German girl with the somewhat deceptive nickname "Easy" (Maria Perschy) girl-ganging up on Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson).
With the opening Henry Mancini music, one knows this is going to be a good movie anyone can watch.With so many realistic type movies made today, it is a pure pleasure to sit back and enjoy something that is just funny with some with romantic comedic conflict and a great "feel good" ending.
Maybe it is the beautiful views of a fishing lake combined with great actors having fun that make this an "escape" for me.If you like other Rock Hudson romantic comedies (like Pillow Talk), you will enjoy this great movie from the 60's..
would have to be my favourite neo-screwball comedy (does such a term already exist or can I claim to have invented it?), and perhaps the last screwball directed by one of the original masters of the genre, Howard Hawks.The factor which by far most surprised me in Man's Favorite Sport?
Being a semi-remake of Hawk's Bringing Up Baby, the two leads could have just done impressions of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn but the avoid doing so and make the roles their own but like Grant and Hepburn their chemistry is on fire.This movie exemplifies in the early to mid-1960's aesthetic with its fashion, the cars and overall appearance showcasing the final days of old Hollywood glamour.
I also don't normally go for those cheesy opening credit songs from the 50's and 60's often sang by the likes of Doris Day but this one is dam catchy.Unlike the manic intensity of its sister film Bringing Up Baby, Man's Favorite Sport?
Hudson's Rodger Willoughby (a name which feels straight from a 1930's comedy) is an icon of masculinity from writing books about fishing, yet he is secretly a phony who has never fished in his life and completely fails at his attempts at his attempts at outdoor living while being made the foil of two hyperactive women.
The movie centres around a fishing competition where Roger has to participate thanks to his eccentric boss (the great John McGiver) who got convinced by Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss), PR exec at a rest house where the fishing competition takes place.
Rock Hudson (in a role originally offered Cary Grant) and Paula Prentiss work beautifully together in this battle-of-the-sexes film from the early 60's.
It's a shame that the studio didn't team the two up again, as they had a definite chemistry together (not unlike Rock had with Doris Day).I once met Paula backstage at a play she was appearing in and asked her to sign a lobby card showing the sexy "sleeping bag" scene from this film.
Rock Hudson was a wonderfully versatile actor who played a wide range of roles from light comedy to drama.
The scene in the piano museum, the erecting of the tent, the bear on the motorbike, the inflatable waders, and the torn zip scene were all very funny in themselves BUT all seems like add-ons' to the story rather than part of the smooth flow of the action.In this film Rock Hudson demonstrated what a consummate light comedy actor he was, always thoroughly convincing  but for me there was not quite the sexual chemistry with Paula Prentiss that he had with Doris Day. I strongly urge film fans to go back to the original Howard Hawks films to see some of the scenes as they were first filmed.
From the get go this is wonderful...oh, sure, male chauvinist piggish perhaps, pre-revolution of the late sixties early seventies.....yet, the women are running a hotel/lodge on a lake and a fishing tournament -- Back to the start.....wonderful Henry Mancini music, very cute when some of the fishing escapades of Rock Hudson take place.It includes Abercrombie and Fitch ...
This is a slight little comedy starring Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss.
So, there are no big surprises but this movie shows that Hudson could do good comedy without Doris Day, as Paula Prentiss fills in nicely in this role..
This 1964 film looks more like a Doris Day battle-of-the-sexes outing than Hawks' own 1930s screwball comedy style.
Paula Prentiss was honing her "kooky" persona (Somewhat better achieved in the following year's "What's New Pussycat?") but she has zero chemistry with Rock Hudson.
Nobody seems to understand this movie.Howard Hawks's screwball comedy starring Rock Hudson as a supposed professional expert on sports fishing who actually knows nothing about it, and Paula Prentiss as the woman who helps him get through a fishing contest despite his ignorance, is perhaps the most amazing cinematic study in symbolic sex I can think of, though the symbolism is so naturally integrated into the action that the censors can't touch it.Almost every scene involves a woman or women getting a man (Rock Hudson) into something he can't get out of.It begins with Hudson inserting himself into Prentiss's car and almost not getting out of it, incidentally dropping his ID into the car next to her ID (!), and it turns out she's also gotten him into getting a ticket, which he can't get out of.Then he finds she's gotten him into entering the fishing tournament, which he can't get out of.Later she makes him fall into the lake, which he can't get out of, and then she tells him to inflate the gaiters, which he does but they inflate up too much (!) and he can't get out of them.And she puts his arm into a cast which he can't get out of, so he has to walk around with his arm sticking stiffly up (!) until she finally cuts off the cast (yes, there's a lot of castration imagery too.) And she causes him to sleep on the couch in a sleeping bag, which he subsequently can't get out of, causing him to get in trouble with his fiancée Tex, which he can't get out of.These are only a few of the more memorable scenes of "female traps male," which are all symbolic of male ambivalence towards the sex act: desire to consummate and dread of being consumed.I haven't even mentioned the male sexual imagery associated with fish, but if you watch the film with that in mind, you'll see it everywhere.
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!
This combined with the not so interesting plot and supporting characters, makes this movie a disappointment.The title of the movie hints at a flamboyant playboy going after many women, but the character played by Rock Hudson is nice but rather inept individual, and the women that appeared in the opening scene were lot better looking than Paula Prentiss.
Probably doesn't hold up well to movies people expect nowadays, but at the time it was very popular fare.Rock Hudson was an excellent comedy actor, and always gave his all.
Howard Hawks did a very great funny movie in the 1930's : Bringing up Baby.
Rock Hudson as a sporting goods salesman and author of a fishing manual who has never gone fishing or camping in his life.
It's a throwback to the screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s with Rock Hudson as a fishing "expert" roped into entering a fishing contest by loony PR woman Paula Prentiss.
It's studio-bound to be sure, but it's stylish fun and features a very good supporting cast including John McGiver as Hudson's boss, Norman Alden (nearly stealing the film as John Screaming Eagle) and the fetching Maria Perschy as "Easy." The great music score is by Henry Mancini..
The second story going on is this "triple A" chick who is played by Paula Prentiss and it's just as funny as the fishing part.
Rock Hudson played great, friendly, but masculine male roles, Paula Prentiss is hot and endearing and who couldn't fall in love with her?
Of course there is a romantic story when Rock falls hard for Paula Prentiss, who is very hot looking in this movie.
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.
This often lumbering Howard Hawks comedy stars Rock Hudson, a "reknowned fishing expert" who really knows nothing about fishing, and Paula Prentiss, as the daughter of the local fishing lodge's owner.