Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray) is an eccentric Medfield College professor who is so engrossed in conducting experiments in his garage/lab, he misses his own wedding – three times.
Tiring of this, Ned’s lovely fiancée Betsy starts seeing nerdy Professor Ashton, and to make matters worse, local tycoon Alonzo Hawk 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”.
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, ably supported by a cast including Tommy Kirk, Keenan Wynn and Leon Ames, 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 60’s and one of Disney’s more successful forays into live action films.
A sequel, Son of Flubber, followed in 1963, with a remake simply titled Flubber appearing in 1997 (starring Robin Williams).
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
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
