The World's Greatest Athlete (1973)

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This "Tarzan" variation has losing coach John Amos (as Sam Archer) finding "The World's Greatest Athlete" in the form of loin-clothed Jan-Michael Vincent (as Nanu), while on safari in Africa, with sidekick Tim Conway (as Milo Jackson). Naturally, Mr. Amos brings Mr. Vincent home, to bone up his failing college team. Vincent's furry companion "Harry" (a tiger) also makes the trip. Vincent is puzzled by kissing, but finds a willing partner in Dayle Haddon (as Jane). Alas, voodoo godfather Roscoe Lee Browne (as Gazenga) wants Vincent returned to Africa...A well, dumb movie. All you really have are some 1970s TV favorites, sweetened with a young and beautiful Jan-Michael Vincent.**** The World's Greatest Athlete (2/4/73) Robert Scheerer ~ Jan-Michael Vincent, John Amos, Tim Conway

One in a long series of formulaic, "teenager with a difference" Disney comedies, this movie is of interest mainly for its cast and its occasional bits of amusement accidentally tossed in amongst the tedium. Amos plays a college athletics coach, who leaves on a sojourn to Africa with his assistant Conway in tow, after suffering yet another humiliatingly bad season. While there to forget his troubles, he is introduced to Vincent, a spectacularly talented young man who is the orphaned child of missionaries and who has been raised in the wild. He can outrun a cheetah, out-jump a monkey and basically outdo anyone or anything in the realm of sports. In an extended sequence, Amos coerces him to return to his school (with his pet tiger along for the adventure!) and play for his track & field team. Since Vincent has been in the jungle his entire life, he needs a tutor to help him with his college subjects (!) and so Amos enlists pretty Haddon to help him. This leads the jealous and devious Goldman to retrieve Vincent's witch doctor mentor Browne from the continent and have him taken back, out of the way. Browne uses voodoo to foul up Amos's dreams of glory for Vincent and to keep Conway from alerting Amos to his presence. Naturally, it all ends well, this being a Disney movie. Amos (who made something of a historic footnote by playing the first black lead in a Disney film in decades) is animated and enthusiastic in his role, though a bit one note. It's hard to imagine that the man here, straining to make a lot of tired jokes funny and overplaying a lot of them, is the same one who stormed off of "Good Times" because of the scripts and who later made such an impact in "Roots." Conway's improvisational style sort of butts up uncomfortably against the carefully structured formula comedy found here and his timing seems off as a result, though he does have an amusing extended sequence in which he is shrunken to the size of a doll and knocked around inside a purse and around a bar area. Vincent, who, naturally, is in peak shape here, is hilariously bad in his acting, but impressive in the action sequences. It's also quite stunning to see him (and Amos, Conway and Walker!) cavorting with a real tiger in the film! Haddon, not coincidentally playing a girl named Jane, has a rather sensuous moment with Vincent as she's tutoring him, but otherwise isn't given much to do. (She would famously appear in Playboy right after filming this, confounding the Disney executives!) Browne is clearly enjoying his sly, magical role and has a lot of fun disrupting things and yanking the chains of those around him. Walker tries to inject some humor into her preposterous role of a nearly blind landlady who keeps mistaking the tiger for an inebriated tenant. Some real life sportscasters appear to lend an air of authenticity to the patently unreal proceedings, chiefly Gifford, McKay and Cosell, who has trouble playing himself, though he does tick off an amusing line or two along the way. It's not a bad movie, it's just a very routine one with humor that had to be a tad stale even at the time of release.

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.

This is a fish out of water story in which coach John Amos and sidekick Tim Conway find a young jungle man and figure he'd be a great athlete if he were taken to civilization to compete in athletic competitions. So they give it a try. Like many Disney films from the early 1970s, it's loaded with silly humor and contrived sentiment, yet there is a certain charm that may endear it to the younger members of its audience.