The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)

97 Minutes, Black & White (Colorized for 1986 home video release), USA, 1961

Written By: Bill Walsh (based on the short story “A Situation of Gravity” by Samuel W Taylor)

Directed By: Robert Stevenson

Dramatis Personae:

Fred MacMurray is Professor Ned Brainard, chemistry professor at Medfield College, theoretical genius and the titular Absent-Minded Professor.

Nancy Olsen is Betsy Carlisle, Secretary to the President of Medfield College, and longsuffering fiancé of Professor Brainard.

Keenan Wynn is Alonso P Hawk, banker, primary creditor of Medfield College, and all-around no-goodnik.

Tommy Kirk is Biff Hawk, Alonso’s slacker son.

Leon Ames is Rufus Daggett, President of Medfield College.

Elliott Reid is Professor Shelby Ashton, Fine Literature professor at Rutland College, and rival with Brainard for Betsy’s affections.

Belle Montrose is Mrs. Chatsworth, Professor Brainard’s housekeeper, and voice of common sense in his befuddled world.

Charlie Briggs and Don Ross are Sig and Lenny, Hawk’s dimwitted henchmen.

Commentary:

As I mentioned previously, the late 1960s were a difficult and puzzling time for Disney feature films. Not only was the Disney Company going through changes, but so was American society as a whole. It was uncharted territory, and it proved quite difficult for the company to find its footing in the brave new world that art and entertainment was becoming.

On the other hand, the EARLY 1960s were quite solid. This was perhaps a less tumultuous time in American history, when society was just beginning to change, when new ideas were becoming acceptable, but there still was a status quo in place. It was during this time period that some of Disney’s best live-action movies came out, and it was during this period that Disney filmmakers introduced one of their most famous fictional institutions: Medfield College. A small ivy-covered institute of higher learning nestled somewhere in Anytown, USA, Medfield was the setting for seven films, light-hearted comedies focusing on eccentric geniuses who make grand discoveries by accident and cross paths with decidedly non-menacing bad guys who want to us their inventions for their own nefarious plans. Although a running theme through most of these movies is Medfield’s perennial cash-flow problems, there never seems to be any shortage of super-geniuses among the faculty or student body who are able to make great discoveries that will help their beloved Alma Mater. The likes of Merlin Jones, Dexter Riley…and Ned Brainard, hero of The Absent-Minded Professor. This movie is probably the best single film of the “Medfield Cycle,” so much so that it’s been followed by a sequel and two remakes. Competently put-together, well acted, and featuring special effects that were, at the time, state-of-the-art, The Absent-Minded Professor remains one of the minor Disney classics.

Meet Professor Brainard. He’s a chemistry teacher at Medfield, and his personal interest is in the different forms of energy to be found in nature. We first see him demonstrating sound energy to his class…and consequently blowing up the classroom when he inadvertently shatters a beaker full of volatile chemicals (this proves to be a recurring problem in Brainard’s line of work). We also get to see how absent-minded he is when he consults his lesson planner and finds a note to himself that he’s getting married tonight (so his students get no homework that week; none of my professors were that kind).

Yes, Professor Brainard is set to marry Betsy Carlisle, secretary to the President of Medfield College. For the third time; it would seem that Betsy’s been stood up by the Prof twice before (because he’s absent-minded, you see). Betsy is apparently the most forgiving woman on earth, though, because she’s ready to go through it again, despite the attempts by the pompous poetry-spouting Shelby Ashton to get her to give up on Brainard and play the field with someone more reliable (like, say, HIM). While the wedding party gathers, Professor Brainard does some last-minute puttering around in his garage laboratory, assisted by his sheepdog Charlie (personally I think a wired-haired terrier would make a more competent lab partner, but that’s another matter altogether). He is researching energetic particles, hoping to find a substance capable of generating or transferring a new form of energy. His housekeeper Mrs. Chatsworth pops her head in to bid him good night, and to remind him of the wedding. He assures her that he won’t miss it this time, and sends her on her way. Oh, if only Mrs. Chatsworth had stuck around a few minutes longer, because almost the exact moment her car pulls away from the house, Brainard’s lab explodes with him in it.

Ignorant of this development, Betsy assumes that Ned just forgot again, and this proves to be the last straw. She calls off the wedding, and asks Shelby to drive her home (he of course does not refuse a lady in distress). Meanwhile, Brainard regains consciousness to find his lab destroyed (Charlie is unharmed; sheepdogs are nothing if not resilient), and he is understandably disheartened…until the damaged reaction chamber starts making strange sputtering noises, and levitating off the ground. Opening the chamber, Brainard finds a strange rubbery substance inside. The Prof breaks off a piece, rolls it into a ball, and drops it. The ball bounces on its own, getting higher and faster with each bounce. The substance, whatever it is, is capable of conducting and transferring kinetic energy. Excited, the professor dubs the substance “Flubber” (flying rubber), and begins experimentation to determine the exact properties of what he’s just created. He soon determines that Flubber can absorb any kind of energy – kinetic or radioactive – amplify it, and repel it in the opposite direction. Drop it on the floor and it bounces off even higher. Bombard it with controlled amounts of gamma radiation (Egad, where did he get radioactive material? Medfield’s science department must be REALLY well funded), and it will float gently. And physical weight doesn’t seem to make a difference; with Flubber, Brainard has effectively cracked anti-gravity.

The joy of this great scientific discovery is soon overshadowed, however, when Mrs. Chatsworth shows up again. It’s morning. Brainard has been experimenting all night, and has missed his wedding. AGAIN. Brainard immediately sets off to explain to Betsy what happened; surely having made such a tremendous scientific breakthrough – and almost blowing himself up in the process – is a good enough excuse for one last do-over. He arrives just as President Daggett is dictating a letter to Betsy. Right on schedule, Medfield is having financial problems: a loan made to the college by Alonso Hawk is coming due, and rumors are flying that Hawk intends to take possession of the college, demolish it, and put up cheap tract housing in its place (the fiend!). Daggett is hoping to get Hawk to give Medfield a little more time to repay. Professor Brainard pops in at this moment, but Betsy refuses to speak with him or to pay attention to the ball of Flubber he’s brought with him as an explanation. Daggett takes his secretary’s side and prepares to throw Brainard out, and it’s at THIS time that Alonso Hawk himself storms into the office, with his son Biff in tow, to complain about Professor Brainard. Biff flunked Brainard’s chemistry class, and Alonso has taken it as a personal affront to the Hawk family name. Professor Brainard sticks to his guns, however; the unmotivated Biff failed fair and square, and Brainard will not be intimidated into changing the grade. Unfortunately this display of integrity completely screws up Daggett’s efforts to schmooze Hawk, who leaves in most undiplomatic mood. Betsy promptly ejects Brainard from the office and gets back to work.

As Alonso and Biff drive away, we get a glimpse at the evil-ness of Alonso P Hawk. Biff is the star player on the basketball team (now stop for a moment, and ponder with me a universe where Tommy Kirk is a star athlete, in ANY sport), and his failing grade renders him ineligible to play in the big game against Rutland tonight. With this knowledge in mind, Alonso decides to make a sizeable bet on Rutland. This is over Biff’s objection, thus showing that Biff at least has a heart, but his father is not one to miss any opportunity to make few bucks.

Rebuffed by his true love, Professor Brainard returns to his lab, and prepares the first practical application of Flubber. He replaces the engine of a Model-T touring car with a modified version of the gamma radiation rig he first used, thus enabling him not only to run the car on Flubber, but also to actually use the car to fly. After a successful test run, he decides to swing by Betsy’s place, intending to take her to the basketball game in style. Unfortunately, he arrives just as Betsy is about to leave…with Shelby Ashton. Yes, she’ll be attending the game with at Rutland man. A Rutland man with designs on her himself, no less. Nonplussed, Brainard nevertheless heads to the game alone, determined to find some way to get through to Betsy.

The big game does not go well for Medfield. Rutland dominates them for the entire first half – dominates them so thoroughly, in fact, that one has to wonder just what possible difference Tommy Kirk could have made – and Shelby only gets more and more smug. When half-time is called, Shelby makes a snide remark about Medfield maybe doing better if they had elevator shoes. That gets Brainard to thinking, of a way to both get Betsy to see his remarkable discovery and to help Medfield win the game. He sneaks into the locker room and applies Flubber to the heels of the Medfield players’ shoes. When he’s caught trying to sneak out, the Prof improvises a rousing pep talk to the team, telling them that they can still win this game, if they believe in themselves…and if they bounce as high as they can.

Whether the team takes Brainard’s advice to heart or not is debatable, but once the second half starts, their Flubber-ized shoes serve them well. Medfield bounces around the court and comes from behind to win (despite the objections of Rutland’s coach; the referee is just as baffled as he is, but can find no regulation against jumping too high). But in the aftermath, when Brainard tries to explain to Betsy how he helped the team to win, it comes out all wrong and he ends up looking like a jerk for taking credit for the victory. Shelby mocks him, then takes Betsy home, leaving Brainard alone and broken-hearted.

After escorting Betsy home, Shelby makes the bold move of proposing to her. Betsy doesn’t give him an answer right away (clearly, she’ll still carrying a torch for Brainard), but he leaves her door brimming with hateful confidence. That confidence is soon dissipated by a vengeful Brainard, who pummels the roof of his car with his flying Model-T. In a panic, Shelby rams into a police car, and his description of an invisible airborne attacker gets him taken in for drunk driving.

Early the next morning, Alonso Hawk is ranting to his henchmen over the money he lost on the game, and the fact that no one can figure out how Medfield was able to bounce their way to victory. Biff’s intelligence work is anything but; all he found out was that Professor Brainard gave them a pep talk between halves. It’s only by sheer happenstance that Alonso opens his window just in time to see a Model-T flying over the town. Showing more intelligence than previously indicated, Biff puts two and two together and realizes that it’s Professor Brainard, having finally made a breakthrough in the alternate energy sources he’s been talking about in class.

Later that day, the Hawks pay a visit to the Professor, and offer him a deal. Brainard’s discovery could be worth a lot of money if he knew how to properly market it – money that could be used to bail out Medfield – and Hawk knows how to market. Hawk proposes a partnership, but Brainard refuses. He wants to use his discovery to benefit mankind, not to line Hawk’s pockets. Hawk leaves Brainard’s lab with nefarious plans in mind; one way or another, he’s determined to get his hands on that Flubber.

The Absent-Minded Professor is the stuff of legend, an innocuous but memorable little comedy that only the most heartless bastard cannot recall as a fond childhood memory. And there’s a good reason for its staying power. The movie is not brilliant or groundbreaking, but it’s rock solid. Writer Bill Walsh and director Robert Stevenson were veterans of both Disney Productions and the genre of “screwball comedy,” and so they knew how to craft a solid little family-oriented comedy. Adding to the foundation of the film are the fine character actors in the cast, like vaudeville-trained Fred MacMurray and third-generation performer Keenan Wynn. Real professionals, they know the roles they have and they stick with them. Add to these two already-strong elements some special effects that have, surprisingly, aged fairly well (you can barely see the strings when the Model-T takes off), and you have a super-neat little comedy.

I think the main reason The Absent-Minded Professor endures is Fred MacMurray’s presence as our hero. 53 years old at the time, MacMurray was significantly older than the typical teen or young-adult protagonist you’d expect to see in such a movie. Nevertheless he brings a manic, endearing energy to the role – he’s every kid’s crazy uncle. I think that’s why Ned Brainard has endured as the hero of the Medfield Cycle where Dexter Riley and Merlin Jones have not: being an adult, there’s no pressure on the character to try and be “hip” at the expense of the plot. And being an adult, Professor Brainard is a more broadly relatable character, one that both parents and children can understand and enjoy.

It’s also worth noting just how unapologetically “square” Professor Brainard is as a character. He’s in no way dashing or charismatic, just simple and decent. And he well may be a product of his time, or a thoroughly realistic portrayal of a career intellectual, head in the clouds and body safely ensconced in an Ivory Tower. His reaction to Hawk’s strong-arming him for control of the Flubber is perhaps most telling: he calls the government and offers Flubber to whichever department wants it for development. He wants to use his scientific breakthrough to better mankind, and gosh-darnit, who better to help him do that than good old Uncle Sam? It’s telling that he rejects Hawk’s sound capitalistic views as “blackmail” rather than a free market at work. Brainard is an idealist, not a profiteer, and he wants everyone to benefit from Flubber. It’s a bit of culture shock to those of us born or raised after 1968: there was a time when the government was TRUSTWORTHY? Or at least perceived as such? Wow. Being a product of its time, I find it difficult to believe that the movie was aware of how discomfiting its moral could be…though I am a bit alarmed that the only government agency interested in Flubber turns out to be the military. No way to misinterpret THAT, really.

Nevertheless, The Absent-Minded Professor manages to remain a mostly innocuous little comedy, a more innocent product of a more innocent time. No one would accuse it of trying to be the story of a generation or a grand cinematic vision, but then, it’s not trying to be. It’s trying to be fun and entertaining for the whole family, and there it succeeds. That kind of entertainment never gets old, really, and I think that’s why The Absent-Minded Professor is still so well-regarded. Corny as it may be at times, it’s still fun to watch, and honestly, what more do you expect from Disney in 1961?

Things To Look For:

- I’ve been pretty merciless to Tommy Kirk in this review, so I’ll take the time to make some amends. After all, the former Mouseketeer can’t help not being a believable jock. And he does manage to infuse his character with some unexpected depth; Biff seems to have more of a heart than his father. He takes his failing of chemistry in stride, unlike his father who makes “a federal case of it,” as Biff puts it. He also seems to have some fondness for Professor Brainard, and has some misgivings about going along with Alonso’s plans to steal the Flubber-powered car. Biff actually seems like a decent kid, if not trapped under his evil father’s thumb. It actually makes me wonder if some character development was left on the cutting room floor; after the evil Alonso gets his comeuppance, maybe Biff had a happy ending that we didn’t get to see.

- One of the little things that sets The Absent-Minded Professor apart from your typical comedy about miraculous scientific breakthroughs is how the technobabble is handled: in that, it actually MAKES SENSE. Sure, it takes about three or four sessions to get what Brainard is babbling about, but once you do it’s actually logical in its way. He talks about “repulsive energy” and “meta-stable compounds,” in ways that make sense in context. I think that sets this movie apart from the other films in the Medfield Cycle: it’s a fantasy, but it makes an effort to seem realistic. Rather than just pass Flubber off as some mysterious miracle goop, the filmmakers attempt to explain WHY it’s so miraculous. I’ve never read the short story the screenplay is based on, but I wonder if this is a carryover from the source. It’s a small touch that adds to the overall feeling that you’re watching a movie that was crafted with more loving attention that you’d expect.

- The Rutland-Medfield basketball game remains my personal favorite part of the movie. It’s just so unbelievably goofy. The game starts out ridiculously lopsided: the Rutland team are giants among men, and the Medfield boys can never get their hands on the ball. It’s almost like watching the Harlem Globetrotters trounce the Washington Generals; Medfield doesn’t have a chance. Only when they get their Flubber-ized shoes does Medfield turn it around – and the game manages to get even goofier, as players bounce into the rafters of the gym and leap over their gigantic opponents. Between the basketball team and Shelby Ashton’s chronic pompousness, I wonder what goes on at Rutland. Do they offer courses in bullying at Rutland? Smugness 101?

- Speaking of Shelby Ashton, I feel I must speak on behalf of all English Majors everywhere, when I say that Shelby is not representative of us as a species. Sure, we’re pompous bastards, and sure, we’ll try to steal your girl, but no English Major worth his worthless degree would mangle the Bard as horrendously as he does. And most of us are smart enough not to antagonize the chemistry professor. If only on the odd chance he has a mind to frame us for a DUI…

Date Posted: June 26^th, 2008

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