''The World's Greatest Athlete'' is a 1973 American

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

Robert Scheerer Robert Scheerer (December 28, 1929 – March 3, 2018) was an American film and television director, actor, and producer. Scheerer was born in Santa Barbara, California, on December 28, 1929. Scheerer's work in films began with his dancing, inc ...

and starring John Amos,

Roscoe Lee Browne Roscoe Lee Browne (May 2, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American actor and theatre director, director. He resisted playing Stereotypes of African Americans, stereotypically black roles, instead performing in several productions with New York Ci ...

Tim Conway Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway (December 15, 1933 – May 14, 2019) was an American actor, comedian, writer, and director. Conway is perhaps best known as a regular cast member (1975–1978) on the TV comedy ''The Carol Burnett Show'' where he port ...

, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. Released by

Walt Disney Productions The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

, it is one of the few wide-release Hollywood

sports film A sports film is a film genre in which any particular sport plays a prominent role in the film's plot or acts as its central theme. It is a production in which a sport or a sports-related topic is prominently featured or is a focus of the plot. D ...

s to look at the world of track and field. In the film, two coaches (portrayed by Amos and Conway) make use of a jungle boy (played by Vincent) and have him make history by winning every event at the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

Track & Field Championship. The screenplay was by Dee Caruso and Gerald Gardner who also did a novelisation of the film. This film was also one of

Billy De Wolfe William Andrew Jones (February 18, 1907 – March 5, 1974), better known as Billy De Wolfe, was an American character actor. He was active in films from the mid-1940s until his death in 1974. Early life and early stage career Born William Andrew ...

's final roles before he died the following year.

Plot

Sam Archer (Amos) and his assistant Milo Jackson (Conway) are coaches at Merrivale College. They have lost every game in every sport which they have coached, raising the concerns of the head of the Alumni Association. With only one year left on his contract, Archer decides that he is in need of a vacation. Together, Archer and Jackson head to

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

in Southern Africa. While out on a safari, the pair catch sight with their guide Morumba of the

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Creat ...

-like jungle boy named Nanu (Jan-Michael Vincent), who can outrun a

cheetah The cheetah (''Acinonyx jubatus'') is a large Felidae, cat and the Fastest animals, fastest land animal. It has a tawny to creamy white or pale buff fur that is marked with evenly spaced, solid black spots. The head is small and rounded, wit ...

in full bound. Seeing this, the coaching staff quickly whip out their recruitment pen and papers, but soon fall (literally) into the clutches of Nanu's godfather, spiritual leader Gazenga (Roscoe Lee Browne). Because Nanu is an orphan and an innocent child of the bush, Gazenga believes that throwing Nanu into the world of competitive United States

college athletics College sports or college athletics encompasses amateur sports played by non- professional, collegiate and university-level student athletes in competitive sports and games. College sports have led to many college rivalries. College sports ...

would interfere with his spiritual development. Despite Gazenga's concerns, the ambitious coaches persuade Nanu to join the Merrivale College program as Nanu brings his pet

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies and the nominate tiger subspecies. It ranks among the largest wild cats alive today. It is estimated to have been present in the Indian subcontinent since the Late ...

Harry with him. From this point forward, the plot is driven by a combination of

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...

and suspense, for Nanu's destiny as the ''World's Greatest Athlete'' will annoy several powerful people who are used to getting their way. Nanu's innocence, Archer's scheming, Jackson's ineptitude, Gazenga's outraged wisdom, and the Machiavellian plotting of the villains all play roles in the action as the film heads toward the final track meet. The atmosphere of American competition does indeed threaten Nanu, but he is saved from disintegration by love interest Jane Douglas (Dayle Haddon). Jane and Nanu's budding relationship angers rival Leopold Maxwell (Danny Goldman), whose attempts to sabotage the budding star build toward a crescendo as the ultimate competition approaches. The climactic track meet is peppered with commentary by ABC-TV sportscaster Howard Cosell. After his victory, Nanu decides to return home, accompanied by Jane and Harry, and Archer and Jackson bid him farewell at the airport. In the final scene, a

framing device A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...

is shown where Archer and Jackson are depicted trying to recruit a new athletic phenomenon that resides in China.

Cast

* John Amos as Coach Sam Archer *

as Milo Jackson * Jan-Michael Vincent as Nanu *

as Gazenga * Dayle Haddon as Jane Douglas *

as Dean Maxwell * Nancy Walker as Mrs. Petersen *

Danny Goldman Daniel Goldman (October 30, 1939 – April 12, 2020) was an American actor and casting director. He was the voice of Brainy Smurf in Hanna-Barbera's '' The Smurfs'' (1981–1989). Early life Goldman graduated from Far Rockaway High School in ...

as Leopold Maxwell * Don Pedro Colley as Morumba * Vito Scotti as Games spectator * Liam Dunn as Dr. Winslow * Ivor Francis as Dean Bellamy * Leon Askin as Dr. Gottlieb *

Joe Kapp Joseph Robert Garcia Kapp (March 19, 1938 – May 8, 2023) was an American football player, coach, and executive. He played college football as a quarterback for the California Golden Bears. Kapp played professionally in the Canadian Footbal ...

as Announcer Buzzer Kozak * Clarence Muse as Gazenga's Assistant * Virginia Capers as Native Woman *

Philip Ahn Philip Ahn (; March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was an American actor and activist of Korean descent. With over 180 film and television credits between 1935 and 1978, he was one of the most recognizable and prolific Asian-American char ...

as Old Chinaman * John Lupton as Race Starter * Sarah Selby as Woman on Safari * Russ Conway as Judge with Stopwatch * Al Checco as Dr. Checco *

Dick Wilson Dick Wilson (July 30, 1916 – November 18, 2007) was a British-American actor. He was best known as grocery store manager Mr. George Whipple in more than 500 Charmin bathroom tissue television commercials (1965–89, 1999–2000). Biograp ...

as Drunk in bar The film also features many prolific athletes and sports journalists in small or cameo roles, including Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford,

Jim McKay James Kenneth McManus (September 24, 1921 – June 7, 2008), better known professionally as Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist. McKay was best known for hosting ABC's '' Wide World of Sports'' (1961–1998). His intro ...

Bud Palmer John Shove "Bud" Palmer (born John Palmer Flynn; September 14, 1921 – March 19, 2013) was an American professional basketball player and sportscaster. He was a member of the New York Knicks during the team's first three seasons in the Basketbal ...

, and Bill Toomey. An unidentified

actor was used to portray Harry, Nanu's companion and pet who he brings with him from Africa to California. As tigers are not native to Africa, Nanu explains to Archer and Jackson that Harry emigrated from India to Africa as a cub.

Production

Much of the film was shot at University of the Pacific and San Joaquin Delta College in

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is the most populous city in the county, the List of municipal ...

, and in the Newhall neighborhood of

Santa Clarita, California Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-most populous city in Los Angeles County, the 17th-most popul ...

. The track scenes were filmed at California State University-Los Angeles. The live-action jungle scenes were shot at Caswell Memorial State Park, on the

Stanislaus River The Stanislaus River is a tributary of the San Joaquin River in north-central California in the United States. The main stem of the river is long, and measured to its furthest headwaters it is about long. Originating as three forks in the h ...

outside of Ripon, California.

Release

The film opened on February 1, 1973 at

Radio City Music Hall Radio City Music Hall (also known as Radio City) is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York C ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It opened on February 7 in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and then expanded on the 14th.

Home media

''The World's Greatest Athlete'' was released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

in October 1986 by Walt Disney Home Video, and by

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) is the home entertainment distribution arm of the Walt Disney Company. The division handles the distribution of Disney's films, television series, a ...

on March 18, 1997. The film was also released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

on August 2, 2005. As of March 2024, the film had not appeared on the

Disney+ The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

streaming service (unlike the majority of Disney's catalogue titles), for reasons unknown.

Reception

Critical response

Upon the film's release, A.H. Weiler of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' wrote: "It's a dream that is more often simple-minded than simple and generally as hilarious as finishing fourth in the mile run. It should be stressed, however, that this ribbing of the Tarzan myth runs a good, clean course that should grab all red-blooded sports fans up to and including the 14-year-old group. It might be added that everyone from coach Amos to Jan-Michael Vincent, in the title role, athletically tries without much success to make all this good-natured nonsense funny."

Box office

The film opened with a disappointing $125,000 in its first week in New York but was one of the most popular releases of 1973, earning $10,600,000 in

theatrical rental A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket. By extension, the term is frequ ...

s in the United States and Canada that year.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Worlds Greatest Athlete, The 1973 films 1970s sports films American sports comedy films 1970s English-language films Films scored by Marvin Hamlisch Films directed by Robert Scheerer Films about size change Athletics films Walt Disney Pictures films Films about orphans Films about tigers Films produced by Bill Walsh (producer) Films set in universities and colleges Films set in the United States Films set in Zambia Films shot in California Films adapted into comics Jungle adventure films Films about animals Films with screenplays by Dee Caruso Films with screenplays by Gerald Gardner (scriptwriter) 1970s American films English-language sports films