FANTASIA OBSCURA: What Happens When You Cross Kurt Russell and a Computer?
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, you may not realize just what you’re looking at until many years later…
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Distributed by: Walt Disney Pictures
Directed by: Robert Butler
There’s a lot of talk about Kurt Russell getting involved with a film franchise being released by Marvel. Which is understandable, all said, as there’s some discussion about how his role as Ego the Living Planet is something of a continuation of the parabola Russell’s been on, taking on memorable iconic roles like Snake Plissken and Jack Burton.
And of course, Dexter Reilly, his role in that other earlier franchise.
The film opens as the dean of Medfield College, Eugene Higgins (Joe Flynn), is turning down a request for a computer from Professor Quigley (William Schallert) during a staff meeting. The meeting is bugged by Reilly and his fellow members of the fraternity, who seem more interested in science classes than partying like other fraternities on film, and they just won’t stand for it.
This being a Disney movie, the students, rather than take over the campus like they did at Cornell that year, have a meeting with local businessman A. J. Arno (Caesar Romero) and ask him ever so nicely to donate a computer. Which he does, in lieu of a promised cash grant. While the act pissed off made Dean Higgins unhappy, it was necessary so that Arno’s money laundering of his gambling operations would be less conspicuous.
The computer, a Burroughs B205, is set up, and Quigley tries to demonstrate how it works. A part breaks down, however, and Dexter has to make a run to get a new one. In the process of getting the piece installed, lightning strikes the machine, and the computer’s CPU gets downloaded into the poor kid’s head, making him the smartest individual around as far as the film is concerned.
This still being a Disney film, Dexter’s upgrade is not on the level of Transcendence but merely allows him to ace statewide science tests and answer questions on a fictionalized version of It’s Academic. He’s considered overly important, which gives Dexter a swelled head before he realizes how he’s letting the gang down.
He soon straightens out as he competes on TV for his alma mater’s pride and solvency, during which time he discovers that Arno’s gambling database is on the computer he gave the school. When a glitch makes Dexter spit out the data, Arno is desperate to eliminate the world’s smartest man.
Amazingly, the fact that Arno never erased the data from his machine before donating it is the least problematic part of the story; hell, if Paul McCartney can make that mistake…
The more obvious issue is that computers don’t magically download processor power into humans. As this is supposed to be a family film, one of those live action pics that Roy Disney insisted on making cheaply to keep the pump primed, we can overlook that because the story required it.
It’s hard to keep things light, though, when a major plot point come up. At one point, Dexter gets dropped on his head, and he’s asked to keep processing as the “magic CPU” in his head slowly shuts down. As shot, it plays out to the viewer like they are watching someone struggle with brain damage. You watch and feel his “friends” shouldn’t be cheering for him on TV but rushing him to the ER!
Despite this likely inadvertent misstep, the cast and crew are pretty game when it comes to telling a light, family-friendly genre tale. Russell makes for a likable lead, able to play well and off of the cast. As this came towards the end of his child actor days which started playing opposite Elvis Presley, and before becoming a major force as an adult by playing Elvis Presley, the viewer catches him in a state of metamorphosis between the two.
As most of the other adults had established comfort zones within which they could just rely on their patented tics, Russell has to work twice as hard to deliver while the other adults take it too easy. The fact that they may have considered the film unsubstantial probably persuaded them to not bring their best game. That the film had a quick theatrical window and got shoved almost immediately onto NBC’s The Wonderful World of Disney may have meant they were correct, though not right.
In terms of substance and staying power, Disney was happy enough with the film overall that they built a franchise out of it in the days before “franchise” was a Hollywood term. Dexter Reilly, the students and faculty at Medfield, and even A. J. Arno (who kept getting re-released from prison just before the next film starts to stay the villain throughout) would all come back again:
- In 1972’s Now You See Him, Now You Don’t, Dexter and his pals discover an invisibility formula, which allows Dexter to disappear from sight long enough to keep Arno from pulling off a bank job
- In 1975’s The World’s Strongest Man, Dexter and his pals find a different formula to give our hero Herculean strength
Apparently, Medfield College didn’t have strong enough safeguards when it came to using humans as test subjects.
Honestly, how one kid could survive all of that and go on to make it into the alumni association seems odd and far-fetched — unless we’re willing to accept one fan theory floating around out there that Dexter was actually Ego during his earliest visits to Earth. Which, hey, that would explain a lot.
NEXT TIME: We take a side trip for a sad service in remembrance.
