Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)

Excellent but underrated film

Better Late Then Never

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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. Just one example is the fishing contest, in which men are judged by the size of their "trophies": "Mine is bigger than yours: I'm the better man!" And there's some fascinating symbolism in the early scenes in the Abercrombie and Fitch offices, where Hudson and the other men are positioned in front of the various antlered hunting trophies on the walls in such a way that they seem to have horns themselves, foreshadowing, I think, the motif of women manipulating men through male "animal impulses." (I probably can't even explain the symbolism of Hudson getting his tie caught in the zipper of another woman's dress and then being led all around by it without getting this review censored.) About now many reading this are saying, This is a joke, right? and are preparing to post mocking replies saying "Yeah, sure, and I suppose all those fishing rods are also sex symbols ..." (Well, yes, actually.) My only defense is to remind everyone that Hawks was one of cinema's supreme geniuses: not even Hitchcock makes his sexual symbolism (which is universally agreed to be there) so natural and unobtrusive. The ultimate test will be to watch the movie again with some of these things in mind: even if you're skeptical now, I bet you won't be able to help feeling there's something to this. Meanwhile, feel free to post your scorn.(And I'm not saying everything in this movie is a sexual symbol. Probably not the credits, for instance ...)

Here, as so often elsewhere, Hawks pits the egghead against the people of nature. Rock Hudson is a salesman at high-end sports retail Abercrombie and Fitch, which is the L. L. Bean of millionaires. Hudson is a famous fisherman. He's written a best selling book on just how to do it. The problem is that he's never been fishing in his life; the book, and the advice he gives to customers, is just gossip picked up from various sources. In other words, Hudson is a fraud, only no one knows about it, not even his boss, Mr. Cadwalader. (Hawks has a feeling for the proper names: Peabody is an elite name in Boston, while Cadwalader, like Rittenhouse, is an elite name from Philadelphia.At any rate, Cadwalader sends Hudson to join a fishing tournament at a remote lake, expecting him to win fame for Abercrombie and Fitch. He's accompanied by two of the corporation's public relations people, Paula Prentiss (nee Ragusa in San Antonio) and Maria Perschy (from Austria). They discover Hudson's secret, that he's an ignoramus when it comes to praxis, and decide to help him. He and Prentiss fall in love and all is resolved.It's one of Hawks' most relaxed comedies and it's not entirely successful. The dopey musical score doesn't help. Many of the jokes are iterative -- repetitious or borrowed from Hawks' earlier work. There's even a direct quote from "Bringing Up Baby" (1936): "The love impulse in man frequently expresses itself in terms of conflict." The jokes tend to be flat. An Indian guide with his arms folded across his chest grunts out answers to tourists' questions until money comes up, then he relaxes into smooth, modern American speech. Boy, is that old.Yet, if the movie isn't a success, it's not a failure either. There are some very funny moments. Even some of the borrowed jokes are still funny. And both Paula Prentiss and Maria Perschy are -- umm, how can I put this delicately and without sounding sexist? -- babalicious? Prentiss falls easily into the pattern of the Hawks woman. She has the proper ditzy quality, turning all of Rock Hudson's grumbled objections into nonsense. Perschy can't quite get with Hawks' demands. There are times when Hudson is quite good as the humiliated and incompetent male, although he is no Cary Grant, who would have walked successfully through the part with his eyes closed.Hawks was an odd character, superficially dull, laconic, slow moving. But he was thoroughly heterosexual and seduced as many of his leading ladies as he could, according to his biographer. The invitation was phrased something like, "Would you like to spend a weekend at the ranch?" Sometimes he was aced out by his male actors -- John Ireland got to Joanne Dru in "Red River" and Bogart co-opted Lauren Bacall in their first movie together. When that happened, the actor didn't work with Hawks again.The director preferred to make one of two types of movies: those about solidarity among a team of male professionals (eg., "Air Force"), and productions like this one, exposing inexperienced eggheads for the poseurs and impractical idealists that they are (eg., "The Thing From Another World"). This belongs in the second category.

In one of the funniest screwball comedies of the pre-World War II studio era, William Powell has a celebrated experience with a fish while he pretended to be a fishing expert. It was the highlight of Libeled Lady and I'm sure Howard Hawks thought that we could get a whole comedy out of that situation. In Man's Favorite Sport he succeeds admirably. If the film had been done 20 years earlier, Cary Grant would definitely have been in the lead. 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. Pursuing Hudson every step of the way is the kookie Paula Prentiss who seemed to study at the Carol Burnett school of zaniness for this part. 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. He does and the results are hilarious.Don't miss this film if it is ever broadcast.

Only read the first paragraph if you don't want to read about the storyline. As funny as it gets. A screwball comedy with believable characters. Rock Hudson's character writes instructional fishing manuals but has never been fishing and doesn't know a hook from a sinker. Of course the time comes where he is invited to a fishing competition in which his bosses ego and personal reputation is at stake (and Rock's job). So he goes out to the fishing competition with one ridiculous thing happening after another. The big fish jumps into his boat and he wins the competition. 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. More ridiculous dramas occur between them, Rock loses his fiancé' due to hilarious misunderstandings, falls in love with Paula Prentiss, and a happy ending. It's all a fun,immature fantasy. Rock Hudson played great, friendly, but masculine male roles, Paula Prentiss is hot and endearing and who couldn't fall in love with her? I sure did.