Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)

It's a familiar story. Boy meets girl. He's oil. She's water. He's ... Nah. Hold up. Wait. He's the water, and she's the oil. Anyways ... 

He works at a sporting goods store. She works at a hunting and fishing lodge. He's an expert fish angler. And she needs to wrangle an expert fisherman.

Now, this man, Roger Willoughby (Hudson) has also written a best-selling book on the art of catching a fish, earning him much publicity in such circles, which pretty much seals his doom when it comes to this persistent and soon to be revealed ‘slightly’ destructive woman.

Thus, Abigail Page (Prentiss), through Willoughby’s old fudd of a boss (McGIver), has entered our piscatorial paladin in her lodge's annual fishing contest, hoping for more of that same publicity to help boost occupancy.

But while Abigail thinks this plan is a complete no-brainer, Willoughby believes this is a terrible idea! And so, when he adamantly refuses to participate, she just can't understand why and keeps pushing. He puts his foot down. She proceeds to stomp on it until he relents. And so, our hero is in the contest whether he likes it or not. But! Our blustering heroine still has to overcome one major and unforeseen obstacle:

Her alleged fishing expert has never, ever, actually fished a day in his life. In fact, four out of his five senses outright rebel when coming into contact with the cold, slimy buggers -- with only herring getting a pass. Nope. Can't stand 'em. Revolted, even.

Apparently, seems our boy Willoughby became an expert from behind the sales counter, milking his clientele for all their secrets; a bizarre ponzi scheme of advice on bait, lures, rods and reels. Stuck and thus, taking pity on the poor fraud (-- after using this revelation as leverage to hammer on him until he agreed to take part, 'natch), Abigail has one week to turn this armchair angler into an ersatz Virgil Ward.

But he's kind of a hopeless dope; and she has the mutant ability to trigger a chaos effect on those within her reach. His world is falling apart. She is the root cause of it. He's infuriated by her. She's infatuated with him. He's engaged to someone else. She couldn't care less.

Now just stuff all of that into a test tube, and then sit back and watch how these volatile elements react with each other. Will they explode? Or will they gel into some cohesive compound of co-existence? Place your bets now…

(L-R) Paula Prentiss, Howard Hawks, Maria Perschy.

And so, some ten years after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) hit theaters, the stage was set for Howard Hawks' triumphant comedic comeback, Man's Favorite Sport? (1964). And the stage is set-up beautifully, right out of the gate, with a spiffy animated collage and stencil credits, courtesy of Wayne Fitzgerald.

Originally intended as a stealth remake of the producer / director's screwball classic, Bringing Up Baby (1938), Hawks wanted to reunite stars Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn for this whopper of a fish tale. Obviously, that didn't pan out. Grant was still game after Hepburn said no, but felt he was far too old for co-star Paula Prentiss and gracefully bowed out. Luckily, Hawks found a suitable replacement with Rock Hudson.

Hudson had already flexed his funny-bone in several light romantic comedies opposite Doris Day -- Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), Send Me No Flowers (1964), but here proved he was also a very gifted physical comedian that could have -- and probably should have -- been explored and exploited more in future projects. And that gift, with Prentiss' help, makes all the pants-on-fire wackiness to come go down smoothly.

And speaking of the adorable Prentiss -- as a friend of mine commented upon first seeing Olivia Wilde in TRON: Legacy (2010), all dudded-up in her digital spandex glory, and how it made her aware of a fetish she didn't even know she had.

Here, when Prentiss and co-star Maria Perschy showed up in those skin-tight rubber diving suits, well, lets just say my personal Comics Code rumbled and shifted. Noticeably. Very noticeably...

Now, normally, I'm not a big fan of this kind of third-wheel romantic plot: a seemingly happily engaged man meeting up and falling in love with another woman (-- or vice versa). And what I object to is how these films usually make the fiance, male or female, an irredeemable ass of the highest order.

To me, that's just lazy screenwriting and makes the decision to dump one for the other so easy one can hardly believe the hero / heroine got engaged to the odd-person-out in the first place?! 

Here, it's kind of reversed. Tex Connors (Holt), the fiance, seems nice enough but barely shows up long enough to say hello and goodbye. She's so incidental, and with the coming twist that sets up the third act, her character really wasn't even necessary. So one has to ask, Why bother?

On the other hand, I freely admit to feeling the urge to strangle Abigail Page on several occasions as she spastically blustered her way into bowling over poor Willoughby, who hardly saw what hit him and never stood a chance. 

In short order, in a flurry of stuck zippers, torn dresses, and one disastrous dose of sleeping pills, Abigail falls in love, breaks up Willoughby's engagement, and attacks him with a circular saw when another one of her hair-brained schemes goes awry (-- okay, okay, sure, I thought I was gonna die laughing at that scene).

She also inadvertently exposes him as a fraud, gets him fired, and then has the temerity -- nay, the cojones -- to tell him it will never work between them and runs away once he finally expresses mutual feelings for her. 

Will t'woo wuv win in the end? Usually, I wouldn't give a flying feh or rat's ass either way, but thanks to the leads I was hooked, and I laughed, a lot, all the way to the not-so-bitter end -- though most of the throwaway bits prove funnier than the overtly staged comedy. (Loved that running gag with McGiver's errant hair piece.)

The Hawks’ touch helped, too. All of his usual staples were there: strong female characters, sharp and overlapping dialogue, an obsession with gadgetry, characters always moving, and using the sets to dictate his scenes instead of the other way around. 

And while your first instinct might me to throw this one back, in the end I feel this one's a definite keeper. 

Originally posted on December 18, 2011, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

Man's Favorite Sport? (1964) Gibraltar Productions :: Laurel Productions :: Universal Pictures / P: Howard Hawks / AP: Paul Helmick / D: Howard Hawks / W: John Fenton Murray, Steve McNeil, Pat Frank (story) / C: Russell Harlan / E: Stuart Gilmore / S: Rock Hudson, Paula Prentiss, Maria Perschy, John McGiver, Charlene Holt, Norman Alden