Main Cast: Rock Hudson, Paula Prentiss, Maria Perschy, John McGiver, Charlene Holt
Release Year: 1963
Country: US
Run Time: 121 minutes
Plot
Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) is a super salesman of sporting goods who sells fishing equipment but knows nothing about the sport. Roger's boss Cadwalader (John McGiver) gets an idea from publicity director Abigail (Paula Prentiss) to enter him in a fishing contest, and the inept angler has a series of comic consequences before he wins the contest with some help from a bear. When Roger admits that his winning the event was merely luck, he turns in the prize and loses his job. Roger eventually wins Abigail's heart and gets his job back. Howard Hawks directs this slapstick comedy with his typical flair -- witty dialogue and effective sight gags included. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Howard Hawks gave Hollywood some of its most memorable comedies (and dramas, for that matter), but by 1963 his best days were behind him. Still, Man's Favorite Sport? has some flashes of the dependable old Hawks, and the basic theme -- strong willed woman hunts down reluctant man -- is a familiar one that worked well for him before (as in Bringing Up Baby, for example). There's some good physical comedy and a few funny lines, although the movie goes on too long and lacks the snappy pace we expect of the director. Rock Hudson is appealing in the kind of light comedy role at which he excelled; it's not an outstanding performance, but it's smooth and professional. Paula Prentiss, on the other hand, is exceptional, never falling into the trap of playing scenes like other Hawks women (Hepburn, Russell), even when it would seem inevitable. She plays the physical comedy with assurance and expert timing, and creates a character that is winsome and lovable in spite of her over aggressiveness; the audience realizes the character can't help being the way she is and so forgives her the occasional excess. When she interrupts Hudson in mid-sentence, it's because she can't help herself, and Prentiss makes that flaw almost commendable. A decent film, Sport as a whole is no one's favorite -- but Prentiss is hard to resist. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Hawks intended this movie to be a homage to his own 1938 screwball classic Bringing Up Baby with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, and unsuccessfully tried to get the original stars to reprise their roles.[1]
The story concerns Roger Willoughby (Hudson), a well-known fishing expert who works for Abercrombie & Fitch Co. Abigail Page (Prentiss) is a brash and flighty public relations woman. Page is determined to secure Willoughby's participation in a prestigious fishing tournament, only to discover that Willoughby is a phony—he's never fished before in his life.
By threatening to reveal his horrible secret, Abigail forces Roger to fake his way through the tournament. Their schemes to maintain the artifice provide the impetus for the film. Willoughby proves himself to be supremely inept: he cannot fish, cannot set up a tent, cannot run or even board a motorboat. He cannot even swim, as he demonstrates by toppling or plunging straight to the lakebed each time he ventures to go fishing.
In the vein of the screwball genre, the dialog is fast and overlapping, the humor broad and slapstick, multiple levels of deception abound, and a decidedly adversarial relationship constantly teeters on the edge of romance.
"It'll be all over in a moment!" Faux fisherman Roger Willoughby (Rock Hudson) suffers at the hands of publicist Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss) in Howard Hawk's Man's Favorite Sport? (1964). Photo: Universal International 1964.
Release and reviews
Upon its release on February 5, 1964, Man's Favorite Sport? performed acceptably but not exceptionally. The critics' reactions were somewhat tepid, particularly in comparison to Hawk's earlier works[2], though Molly Haskell wrote a glowing analysis of the picture seven years later in The Village Voice. Haskell admitted an indifference to the film in 1964, and that upon revisiting the film in 1971 she was "both delighted and deeply moved by the film--delighted by the grace and real humor with which the story was told, and moved by the reverberation of the whole substratum of meaning, of sexual antagonism, desire, and despair."[3]
Hudson was given relatively sympathetic reviews for the difficult position of impersonating Cary Grant. Robin Wood notes: "It was cruel to make [Hudson] the night-club scene from Bringing up Baby which Cary Grant brought off with such panache."[4]
Prentiss was especially praised for her energetic performance—probably the best role of her career. "Miss Prentiss slips ... agreeably into Katharine Hepburn's shoes. Her bass voice is comically imposing. She's more consciously malevolent/charming than Miss Hepburn in Baby. She's just terrible to Hudson and her outrageousness almost makes the movie half a good comedy."[5] Robin Wood: "Paula Prentiss is—as always—very good, but at times one has the feeling that Hawks is importing a characterization on her instead of working with her."[4] Hawks would later say: "Paula Prentiss was good, but she couldn't remember what she was doing from one shot to the next. Her shots never matched".[6]
