Plot
Roger Willoughby works at Abercrombie & Fitch as a salesman for recreational fishing equipment. He is very successful at his job and highly sought after by his customers, who are looking for equipment which could help them win the next edition of the yearly fishing tournament at Lake Wakapoogee. His boss Mr. Cadwalader requests Willoughby to also participate in the tournament, something Willoughby had never done before. This request comes at the suggestion of Isolde "Easy" Mueller, the daughter of the owner of the Lake Wakapogee lodge, and Abigail Page, the director of public relations for the lodge and Easy's friend. They believe it would improve the tournament's standing and Mr. Cadwalader's business. Willoughby refuses to participate, confiding to Abigail and Easy that he has never fished in his life, cannot stand the touch or taste of fish, and cannot swim. His success comes from listening to his customers, most of whom are very talkative: he simply passes on the advice that one customer gives him to his other customers. Abigail and Easy, who themselves are adept at fishing, promise to teach Willoughby before the tournament starts. He arrives at the lodge with a ridiculously large amount of equipment, all of which was provided by Cadwalader. He does not know how to handle any of it and Abigail's lessons are not very successful, one ending with him almost drowning when he falls out of a boat. Easy tells them that renowned fisherman Joe Killroy has entered the tournament. They decide to fake a broken arm for Willoughby to get out of the tournament. Abigail and Easy put an improvised cast on him, only to find out that Killroy actually had an accident and has a cast himself; they ineptly saw off Willoughby's cast, to his horror. That night, Abigail comes to Willoughby's lodge to request a sleeping pill and lets herself in. When he has to leave to talk to some of his customers, who have arrived for the tournament and want to get some tips from him, Abigail, who had taken the sleeping pill, falls asleep in his bed. When he comes back, he decides to sleep on the floor. The next morning, Easy arrives looking for Abigail. When she tries to help Willoughby open the zipper of his sleeping bag, his fiancee Tex arrives. She is at first amused at the sight but when Abigail comes out of his bedroom she storms off. When the three-day tournament starts, Willoughby is still incompetent but, by sheer luck, catches some large fish which make him very competitive. During one of the nights, he walks Abigail to her lodge and they kiss. Even though the kiss clearly impresses her, she acts as if it was a disappointment, confusing and angering him. On the third day, luck causes him to catch another large fish, winning the tournament. That evening, a tearful Abigail comes to his lodge. She apologizes for getting him in so much trouble and also begs him to refuse the prize and come clean with his boss, the tournament director and his customers. After she leaves, he admits that he was going to do that anyway but that she made it easier for him. He gathers everyone and confesses everything. Even though his boss fires him, everyone else is impressed by his honesty. Willoughby then goes to look for Abigail, who went camping across the lake shore to be alone. He finds her but they bicker until a storm forces them to share her tent, where they fall asleep, still angry with each other. Meanwhile the competitors convince Cadwalader that he has to rehire Willoughby for business reasons: when it will come out that even a totally incompetent fisherman can win such a tournament with Cadwalader's equipment, people will want to buy that equipment. Cadwalader goes out on the lake to search for Willoughby. The storm meanwhile has flushed Abigail's tent out to the lake where they are met by Cadwalader's boat. After they hear the good news, Abigail and Willoughby happily kiss again.Cast
Production
It was the first in a three picture deal Hawks signed with Paramount. In March 1962 Hawks reported John Fenton Murray was working on the script. The story idea was based on a line in a magazine article Hawks had read about a fishing expert who had never been fishing.Hawks Still Eyeing Those Pretty Girls: Latest Discovery Is a Viennese Blonde Named Maria Perschy Hopper, Hedda. Los Angeles Times 27 Nov 1962: C12. In July Hawks said the film would starRelease
Box office
The film was released on February 5, 1964, eventually grossing $6 million at the box office, while earning $3,000,000 in US theatrical rentals. It was the 24th highest grossing film of 1964.Critical reception
The critics' reactions were somewhat tepid, particularly in comparison to Hawks' earlier works, though Molly Haskell wrote a glowing analysis of the picture seven years later in ''See also
*References
Notes Further reading * * *External links
* * * {{Howard Hawks 1964 films 1964 romantic comedy films American romantic comedy films American screwball comedy films 1960s English-language films Films scored by Henry Mancini Films about fishing Films directed by Howard Hawks Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Universal Pictures films 1960s American films