The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)

(On Cable TV, January 2020) Part of Hollywood history is finding films that were, in retrospect, far too ambitious for their own good considering what would be possible later on. From this perspective, you can identify 1967 as the year where thematic barriers were blown wide open, and roughly 1995 until visual obstacles were crushed by CGI. When it comes to The Absent-Minded Professor, the trouble here isn’t thematic: it’s a silly live-action family comedy handled by Disney, and that means that there isn’t much to be improved by franker depictions of themes, sex or violence. The adventures of a genius but scatterbrained chemistry professor who invents flying rubber are innocuous and broad—the kind of thing you could (and still can, notwithstanding the young ones’ tolerance for black-and-white cinematography) take the entire family to see. Fred MacMurray is in complete charmer mode as the titular eccentric scientist—the kind of amiable leading performance he would repeat many times in the Disney-dad stage of his career. Where this first version of The Absent-Minded Professor reaches its limits, however, is in the inability of the special effects to do justice to the high-flying imagination of the script. While the efforts of the special effects crew (nominated for an Academy Award) were undoubtedly heroic and occasionally effective, the seams are clearly showing compared to later-generation digital effects (including the 1997 remake) and may be worth a look just out of bemused not-always-suspended disbelief. As for the rest of the film itself—it’s family fare, too focused on one single joke but otherwise as harmless as it comes. But don’t confuse The Absent-Minded Professor with Jerry Lewis’ The Nutty Professor—it’s on an entirely different comedy register.