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Man's Favorite Sport?

Play trailer Poster for Man's Favorite Sport? Released Jan 31, 1964 2h 0m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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63% Tomatometer 16 Reviews 72% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Salesman Roger (Rock Hudson) is revered for his ability to sell fishing supplies; he's even authored a book on the art of angling. So, when a fishing tournament comes up, his boss asks him to enter. Too bad he doesn't actually know the first thing about the sport, having never done it himself. Helping him with a crash course in rods and reels is the competition's publicist, Abby (Paula Prentiss), and her friend "Easy" (Maria Perschy) -- much to the consternation of Roger's fiancée.
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Man's Favorite Sport?

Critics Reviews

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Variety Matters are helped along somewhat by an attractive and spirited cast, but not enough to keep the film consistently amusing. May 13, 2008 Full Review Time Out In many ways the quintessential Hollywood auteur movie. Jun 24, 2006 Full Review A.H. Weiler New York Times Man's Favorite Sport?, the film's theme song has it, is girls. It certainly is not originality or comedy. Rated: 2/5 May 9, 2005 Full Review Frank J. Avella Edge Media Network we have to sit through silly cartoonish moments involving fishing and fake bears, blended with lame attempts at romantic comedy. Rated: C- Apr 14, 2022 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Howard Hawks directed some classic screwball comedies in his day, but this late-career attempt to recapture that magic comes up short. Still, it offers plenty of fun. Rated: 3/4 Apr 9, 2022 Full Review TV Guide Hawks delivers his usual heavy-handed direction, but the film's premise is too flimsy to spread over two hours. The script is marred by tired comic routines and slow pacing. Rated: 2.5/4 May 13, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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harwee h Serviceable but mediocre by all account. Hudson is all the movie star that he is is magnetic on screen but the story is bland. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 07/13/24 Full Review Ext771 E Awful movie with zero chemistry between Hudson and Prentiss. Hudson has no sense of comedy, and amateurish Prentiss is completely unappealing as both a character and based on her appearance. Woof. Director Hawks was clearly trying to recreate the vibe of "Bringing Up Baby" with Grant and Hepburn, but failed here miserably. Unfunny throughout. Makes you wonder how a movie this bad ever got financed and produced. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 06/21/24 Full Review Steve D Sometimes amusing but there just isn't enough to it. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 07/23/23 Full Review Audience Member No llega a los niveles de sus anteriores screenballs, pero Hawks impreme su sello personal en las escenas finales en el rio. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Jon C Amazing study in sexual symbolism 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 fiancee 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 ...) So far as I know, available in region 1 DVD only in the old 2003 Universal standard DVD; this really needs to be remastered and put on Blu-Ray. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 08/07/16 Full Review Audience Member What a great movie. Very Funny Classic. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Man's Favorite Sport?

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Movie Info

Synopsis Salesman Roger (Rock Hudson) is revered for his ability to sell fishing supplies; he's even authored a book on the art of angling. So, when a fishing tournament comes up, his boss asks him to enter. Too bad he doesn't actually know the first thing about the sport, having never done it himself. Helping him with a crash course in rods and reels is the competition's publicist, Abby (Paula Prentiss), and her friend "Easy" (Maria Perschy) -- much to the consternation of Roger's fiancée.
Director
Howard Hawks
Producer
Howard Hawks
Screenwriter
Pat Frank, John Fenton Murray, Steve McNeil
Distributor
Universal Pictures
Production Co
Gibraltar Productions, Universal Pictures, Laurel Productions
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 31, 1964, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 10, 2017
Runtime
2h 0m
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