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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1960s
    Movies - 1960s Movies - A 2 Mins Read

    Absent Minded Professor, The (1961)

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    Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) is an eccentric Medfield College professor who is so engrossed in conducting experiments in his garage/lab, he forgets to turn up for his own wedding – three times.

    Tiring of this, Ned’s lovely fiancée Betsy starts seeing nerdy Professor Ashton (Elliott Reid), and to make matters worse, local tycoon Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn) threatens to turn beloved Medfield into an estate.

    After a botched experiment blows up Brainard’s garage, he discovers he has accidentally invented a flying rubber, which he dubs “flubber” (for “flying rubber”).

    The gravity-defying substance sets up the film’s best comedic segments: Brainard applies it to the Medfield basketball team’s gym shoes at halftime, sticks it on his own shoes at a school dance, and even converts his old Model T into a flying machine.

    Naturally, the greedy Hawk wants the goo for himself, forcing Brainard to attempt to fly to Washington DC, to plead his case.

    MacMurray is a lot of fun in the title role, although the central romance between MacMurray and huffy bride-to-be Nancy Olson gets a bit annoying in its repetitiveness.

    In all, however, this is one of the best children’s films of the ’60s and one of Disney’s more successful forays into live-action films.

    A sequel, Son of Flubber, followed in 1963. A remake – simply titled Flubber and starring Robin Williams – appeared in 1997.

    Professor Ned Brainard
    Fred MacMurray
    Betsy Carlisle

    Nancy Olson
    Alonzo Hawk

    Keenan Wynn
    Biff Hawk

    Tommy Kirk
    Fire Chief

    Ed Wynn
    Rufus Daggett

    Leon Ames
    Professor Shelby Ashton

    Elliott Reid
    Defence Secretary

    Edward Andrews
    General Singer

    David Lewis
    Mrs Chatsworth

    Belle Montrose
    Coach Elkins

    Wally Brown
    Lenny

    Don Ross
    Sig

    Charlie Briggs

    Director
    Robert Stevenson

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