The Absent-Minded Professor
| The Absent-Minded Professor | |
|---|---|
1961 Theatrical Poster
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| Directed by | Robert Stevenson |
| Produced by | Bill Walsh |
| Written by | Bill Walsh |
| Based on |
A Situation of Gravity 1922 short story by Samuel W. Taylor |
| Starring |
Fred MacMurray Nancy Olson |
| Music by | George Bruns |
| Cinematography | Edward Colman |
| Edited by | Cotton Warburton |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
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Release date
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March 16, 1961 |
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Running time
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97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $25.4 million |
The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 American film distributed by Walt Disney Productions based on the short story "A Situation of Gravity" by Samuel W. Taylor. The title character was based in part on Hubert Alyea, a professor emeritus of chemistry at Princeton University, who was known as "Dr. Boom" for his explosive demonstrations. The film stars Fred MacMurray as Professor Ned Brainard.
The film was a huge success at the box-office, and two years later became the first Disney film to have a sequel, 1963's Son of Flubber.
The original 1961 film was one of the first Disney films to be colorized (for the 1986 video release), and, along with 1959's The Shaggy Dog and 1963's Son of Flubber, it is one of Disney's few black-and-white films to be produced after 1941.
Professor Brainard (Fred MacMurray) (pronounced BRAY-nard) is an absent-minded professor of physical chemistry at Medfield College who invents a substance that gains energy when it strikes a hard surface. This discovery follows some blackboard scribbling in which he reverses a sign in the equation for enthalpy to energy plus pressure times volume. Brainard names his discovery Flubber, which is a portmanteau of "flying rubber." In the excitement of his discovery, he misses his own wedding to Betsy Carlisle (Nancy Olson), not for the first time, but his third. Subplots include another professor wooing the disappointed Miss Carlisle, Biff Hawk's (Tommy Kirk) ineligibility for basketball due to failing Brainard's class, Alonzo Hawk's (Keenan Wynn) schemes to gain wealth by means of Flubber, the school's financial difficulties and debt to Mr. Hawk, and Brainard's attempts to interest the government and military in uses for Flubber. Shelby Ashton (Elliott Reid), who was interested in Betsy, is given his revenge by the Professor, who keeps on jumping on the top of Shelby's car, until it crashes into a police car, where he is given a field sobriety test.
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Wikipedia