Review of The World's Greatest Athlete

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.