The Absent-Minded Professor (Widescreen Edition)

Starring:Fred MacMurray, Nancy Olson, Keenan Wynn, Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, Elliott Reid, Edward Andrews, David Lewis (III), Jack Mullaney, Belle Montrose, Wally Brown, Wally Boag, Don Ross, Forrest Lewis, James Westerfield, Alan Carney, Charlie Briggs, Gage Clarke, Alan Hewitt, Raymond Bailey
Director: Robert Stevenson
Studio: Walt Disney Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

The original, 1961 version of The Absent-Minded Professor is bound to be a hundred times funnier than the bland remake, Flubber. Fred MacMurray is charming as the eccentric college professor who discovers a gooey substance with sustainable energy. Everything about this movie clicks in a way Flubber didn't, particularly the effort by director Robert Stevenson (a Disney favorite who made Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and many other hits for the studio) to create comic tension between MacMurray's gentlemanly performance and the slapstick set pieces. The famous basketball scene (in which some of the players don't realize they have flubber on the soles of their shoes) is perfectly choreographed and exceptionally funny for kids. --Tom Keogh

Description

Hailed as one of Walt Disney's most hilarious comedies, THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR contains two essential elements for laughter -- Fred MacMurray and Flubber, his gravity-defying formula for flying rubber! You'll visit Medfield College and delight in the fun when Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) uses Flubber to put more bounce in the basketball team, fly a Model "T" Jalopy over Washington, D.C., and save Medfield College from financial ruin! Join a brilliant cast full of your favorite Disney stars: Ed Wynn as Medfield's bumbling Fire Chief, Keenan Wynn as the evil-minded Alonzo Hawk, and Nancy Olson as the college secretary who the Professor has absent-mindedly left at the altar ... three times! It's high-flying fun for the entire family!

Customer Reviews:

Absent Minded Professor B/W.......2007-04-02

Fair movie for kids but doesn't hold the same interest being B/W but the color editons were just too expensive.

Classic & Timeless.......2007-01-03

This movie introduced me to Fred MacMurray as a child. Watching the silliness and laughing at the harmless fun, all based on a silly premise. This is the type of movie that was on Sunday nights when I was a kid and afterwards on various local stations and finally on the new Disney Channel before they started original programming and adding other shows of a dubious (but more "hip") nature. If you like silly fun for the whole family, check out this title or any other family movie that features Fred MacMurray, Kurt Russell, Tommy Kirk, Joe Flynn, Ken Berry, Keenan Wynn & Ed Wynn, Hayley Mills, Jim Dale, Dean Jones, Tim Conway, Don Knotts, Robert Morse, Phil Silvers, or Mickey Rooney. You won't be disappointed!!!

COLORIZATION IS GREAT!.......2006-08-28

I don't understand why so many people are against COLORIZATION. I saw all of the Disney movies when they originally came out in the theaters when I was a young child. I enjoy seeing these movies Colorized! It would be nice if Disney would provide both the Colorized Version & the Black & White Version on the same DVD. Disney did this with the Shaggy Dog and it was wonderful.

Most children are not interested in Black & White movies. My own daughter wouldn't watch anything that wasn't in color. I purchased the Absent Minded Professor, Colorized on VHS years ago and it became my daughter's favorite movie.

Since Disney has provided both the Black & White and Colorized Versions of this movie, I don't understand why people are complaining about the Colorized Version. If you don't like colorized movies, don't buy them. Buy the Black & White Version instead. Let those of us enjoy the Colorized Version in peace. To take away stars for Colorization is unfair to Disney since you can purchase either version. Thank you!

Careful With these Reviews.......2006-07-27

All of the negative reviews listed here are complaining about the movie being colorized and not widescreen as the original. Well, this version IS black and white and widescreen!! They are writing about the other release of this. So the general cumulative review for this version is definitely 5 stars. Just make sure you order this version and not the modernized and colorized version.

Flubber rules!.......2006-03-27

A well-paced comic fantasy starring frequent Disney stalwart Fred MacMurray, this is the original from which Robin Williams, 36 years later, made "Flubber." MacMurray plays Ned Brainerd, a chemistry professor at little Medfield College, who has his head so far up in the clouds that he's managed to twice miss his wedding to Betsy Carlisle (Nancy Olson), secretary to college president Rufus Daggett (Leon Ames). On the very night when the third attempt is scheduled, an explosion in Ned's improvised garage lab results in the discovery of a gooey dark substance he names "flubber"--a "metastable compound" that "creates its own energy" when bounced off a hard surface or bombarded with gamma rays. Thrilled by his breakthrough, Ned scarcely realizes he's missed the ceremony again, but once he does, he sets out to get back into Betsy's good graces, defeat his rival for her hand (Prof. Shelby Ashton of long-time rival school Rutland, played by Elliott Reed, who took a similar role as Ralph Hastings in MacMurray's "Follow Me, Boys" five years later), and ultimately save the college from small-time tycoon Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn), a blustering local loan king and descendant of the town's founders who has loaned half a million dollars to the college and is pressing for repayment. Along the way he arranges the spectacular basketball victory of Medfield over Rutland, terrorizes Ashton by bouncing his modified (flying) Model T Ford off the roof of his rival's car (the "Shelby Stomp," as he christens it), and has to rescue his Lizzie from Hawk's warehouse after it's switched for a nonmodified version.

The special effects in this movie, while inevitably nowhere near the caliber of what became possible even 15 years later, are among its high points, and certainly very well done for the time. MacMurray is up to his usual standard as the quiet hero with principles who stands up for what he believes and is ready to fight for his rights. There's also an abundance of laugh-worthy moments, from the quick shots of Ned's bemused little dog Charlie reacting to the first usages of flubber, through the wonderfully comic maneuvers of the basketball game and Ned's handling of Hawk's two goons in the warehouse, to the skillfully intercut scenes in and high above Washington, D.C., when Ned and Betsy fly the car there to offer it to the government and find themselves the target of the capital's defenses. (I can't help wondering why, if the picture drawn in the movie is accurate, Al Qaeda was able to fly a jet into the Pentagon 40 years later without having it shot down before it got within five miles of the place.) In the end, of course, the right triumphs, and Ned and Betsy even manage to have their long-delayed wedding. Comic without being overwhelmingly slapsticky (a bow to nostalgia is provided by the appearance of Wynn's father Ed in a video adaptation of his famous Fire Chief role), the film can also serve as a good jumping-off point for family discussions, like what we owe to our country and how to handle unscrupulous people like Hawk.

The Absent-Minded Professor (Full Screen Colorized)

Average customer rating:

Absent Minded Professor B/W
Classic & Timeless
COLORIZATION IS GREAT!
Careful With these Reviews
Flubber rules!

The Absent-Minded Professor (Full Screen Colorized)
Starring: Fred MacMurray , Nancy Olson , Keenan Wynn , Tommy Kirk , and Leon Ames
Director: Robert Stevenson
Manufacturer: Disney Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00007GZZR
Release Date: 2003-01-14

Amazon.com

Even computer enhanced with unnecessary color, the original, 1961 version of this film is bound to be a hundred times funnier than the bland remake, Flubber. Fred MacMurray is charming as the eccentric college professor who discovers a gooey substance with sustainable energy. Everything about this movie clicks in a way Flubber didn't, particularly the effort by director Robert Stevenson (a Disney favorite who made Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and many other hits for the studio) to create comic tension between MacMurray's gentlemanly performance and the slapstick set pieces. The famous basketball scene (in which some of the players don't realize they have flubber on the soles of their shoes) is perfectly choreographed and exceptionally funny for kids. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

Absent Minded Professor B/W.......2007-04-02

Fair movie for kids but doesn't hold the same interest being B/W but the color editons were just too expensive.

Classic & Timeless.......2007-01-03

COLORIZATION IS GREAT!.......2006-08-28

Careful With these Reviews.......2006-07-27

Flubber rules!.......2006-03-27

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