SYNOPSICS
The World's Greatest Athlete (1973) is a English movie. Robert Scheerer has directed this movie. John Amos,Jan-Michael Vincent,Tim Conway,Roscoe Lee Browne are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1973. The World's Greatest Athlete (1973) is considered one of the best Comedy,Family,Romance,Sport movie in India and around the world.
Sam Archer is the beleaguered head coach of Merrivale College's many hapless sports teams and individual sports athletes, their poor performance placing his job on the line. Taking a break in Zambia with his assistant Milo Jackson to get in touch with his African roots, Sam believes he sees the answer to all his professional problems in the form of Nanu, arguably the fastest, strongest, and most agile person who he has ever come across, Nanu who also has pinpoint accuracy in his aim. After the death of his missionary parents, Nanu was raised as a jungle boy by Gazenga, an African witch doctor. As Nanu is reluctant to leave his African home, Sam and Milo have to manipulate a way for Nanu to want to attend Merrivale. Gazenga may have his own thoughts of what he wants for his son. Eventually, Nanu does go to Merrivale with Sam and Milo, with the one condition that he bring his best friend, Harri, who he's known since he was a child. Beyond adjusting to western life, Nanu finds that his ...
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The World's Greatest Athlete (1973) Reviews
Funny, funny, funny!!!!!!
This is one of the funniest film's of Disney's live action library. Taking another spin on the tale of Tarzan, The World's Greatest Athlete is the story of how college coach Sam Archer, tired of losing, tries to get away from it all by taking a trip to Africa. While there, he encounters Nanu, a superhuman by any standards measured!!! Seeing a gold mine and wins with Nanu as his athlete on campus, Coach Archer lures him to their university, where Nanu indeed excels in sports, but also feels homesick. Good jokes and tasteful humor make this a must-see. Jon Amos and Tim Conway are great as the bumbling coaches, and Jan-Michael Vincent shows that he could act wonderfully within a comedic setting. Also, this is one of the movies that displays Vincent's prowess, and makes people wonder what could have been. While younger viewers may not know of Vincent, or wonder why anyone cares about a "second rate actor", there was a time when many movie fans felt that Vincent could have been a major box office draw. While Nanu ultimately proves that he is a champion, Vincent will always make people ponder if he could have been a real Hollywood contender.
Lots of fun for everyone
Silly? You bet - and don't we love silly. A fish out of water? Most certainly - and aren't we all, at one time or another, a fish out of water. Loads of fun? Most definitely. The story line comes from the fertile imagination of someone impacted by Tarzan, but Tarzan was never this much fun. From Africa to America, covering a whole bunch of different types of people, including a tiger and a near-sighted landlady, The World's Greatest Athlete provides humor and a wonderful chance to relax. It gives you a happy chance to laugh at yourself and everyone else. The whole family will enjoy it. Our family found it a favorite when it first came out - and now that I am retired I still enjoy having a laugh at it now and then.
I was lucky enough........
I was lucky enough to be able to see part of "Athlete" being made at my college in Stockton, California in 1972.I also got to meet Jan-Michael Vincent, John Amos and Tim Conway.I also had a confrontation with the tiger. Those memories will be something I won't forget. To top it off, John Amos and Tim Conway also made a surprise visit to my parents, cousin, and Aunt's restaurant also located in Stockton, California. It was called "Al Funzo's.It was a great evening for me, and my family, and the Restaurant patrons that came in that night.As for the movie, The World's Greatest Athlete" was and still is excellent, and ranks high in my list of favorite movies.
"Me Nanu.......You Jane"
When Coach John Amos and his assistant Tim Conway go looking for athletic talent for Merryvale College, they say they'll travel anywhere. And in The World's Greatest Athlete they go to East Africa in search of a legendary jungle boy raised in the wild whose athletic prowess is beyond belief. The subject of their search is Jan-Michael Vincent who plays the young Tarzan like man and he's every inch the athlete that former Tarzans like Johnny Weissmuller, Glenn Morris, and Buster Crabbe were. They have to use a little trickery to get him out of the jungle and away from his foster father, witch doctor Roscoe Lee Browne. Browne knows all the jungle remedies, but he's lived in the world outside the Kenyan veld and he's up to its challenges. But he's still got concern for his foster son who ain't used to civilization and all the things that entails. Among which include women in the person of shapely Dayle Haddon who covers him on the academic end of things at college. Talk about remedial education though, this is really stretching it. She's also got a jealous suitor in Danny Goldman. Goldman's a little ferret of a schemer, the would be Iago sends for Browne from Kenya to work his voodoo magic to get Vincent back to the woodland wilds and a clear path for Goldman back to Haddon. If that means him losing the big NCAA track meet where Vincent is going to represent Maryvale in all events like Jim Thorpe did years ago for Carlisle, so be it. Jan-Michael Vincent looks just fabulous in a loin cloth. I'm surprised he never was cast in a straight out Tarzan film. He actually did appear in one years later when he was much older and the bad guy in that one. Of course he just had to utter "Me Nanu.......You Jane" to Haddon whose character name of course was Jane. Vincent and Haddon get great support from the whole cast, especially Tim Conway who has to deal with being shrunk to three inches in height by Browne in a bar. Conway gets a nice fifteen minute sequence trying to deal with his unfamiliar surroundings. Nancy Walker has a fine bit as a Mrs. Magoo landlady who can't recognize a tiger that Vincent has brought from Africa as a pet. He must have gotten him from the zoo in Mombasa because as most kids know, tigers aren't native to Africa. This was the final feature film appearance of Billy DeWolfe who plays the dean of the college and Goldman's uncle. I suspect he would have had more of a role had health permitted it. The World's Greatest Athlete is one of Disney's better screen comedies for the Seventies. And as we learn in the end, Jan-Michael Vincent might not just be The World's Greatest Athlete.
70's Disney Family Fun
"The World's Greatest Athlete" stars John Amos ("Good Times), Tim Conway ("The Carol Burnett Show"), and Jan-Michael Vincent ("Airwolf"). The plot follows Amos' college sports coach who is down on his luck. His leadership has not produced a winning team for his school; he is under threat of being fired if he doesn't find a way to turn the sports program around. On a vacation to Africa, he and Conway discover Nanuan orphaned Caucasian boy who was the son of missionaries, he was adopted by local villagers. He is a superb athlete, being able to outrun a gazelle. The coach sees his fortunes right in front of himbut Nanu is uninterested in the Western world. So the coach concocts a scheme to trick Nanu into following him to America, where he promptly is enrolled as a student and made a star of the track and field program. Will the coach's deception be revealed? Will Nanu find that he likes America and wants to stay? The under-rated character actor Roscoe Lee Browne plays a witchdoctor in a supporting role. Of curious interest is how the racial subtexts in the film were cleverly handled. By the early 70's, Disney studios was not known for casting African-Americans in prominent rolesthe most obvious exception would be the still-controversial Song of the South. Here, Amos is the ostensible lead, with Conway as the sidekick, instead of vice-versa. In another decade, the Nordic athlete Nanu might have been portrayed as being worshipped as a god by the villagersfortunately the filmmakers bypass outdated notions of the "white jungle king" and portray Nanu as a young man satisfied with tribal life.