Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

pdrwill While not mentioned in the IMDb credit page, "locations" used in production, most (if not all) of the track and field filming was done at Cal State L.A., in the heat of the summer. I had the privilege of working in the film as an extra, and found the cast and crew to be friendly and professional. Tim Conway was funny on/off camera, and he had co-stars in tears during most of the shooting. The one question I asked one of the directors was how they chose a tiger for a young Tarzan-like character who came from Kenya? No tigers in Africa! This tiger (a huge female Bengal tiger) was well-trained,and most of us were allowed to pet her with her trainer's approval. No trained lion could be located in time for filming, according to my source. They should have had JMV come from India or south-east Asia. Nonetheless, the film was entertaining to watch, and a joy to be a small part of.

johnstonjames cute, Innocent, and by far one of the silliest sports movies ever made, this is classic, slapstick Disney comedy nostalgia at it's most indicative. a sweet reminder of why so many of us were fond of Disney's humour while growing up. just like wholesomeness, cute charm, and imagination were Disney trademarks we came to expect, a quirky, off beat sense of humour was also something that embodied the Disney filmgoing experience of the Disney golden age. when the numerous children's audience flocked to the Saturday matinée to see a Disney film they usually expected it to be good for a few laughs. after all, the whole Disney enterprise's foundation in the beginning were cartoons.that's pretty much what Disney's 'Athlete' is, like most live action Disney comedies, it's a cartoon show with real actors. everything here from characterization to the visual approach is played very broadly. even the African continent in the George of the Jungle cartoons by Jay Ward seemed more serious than this over the top depiction. Jan Michael Vincent's jungle boy Nanu is taken less seriously and more satirically than the Tarzan films.the gags here are pretty funny and more memorable than the film is given credit for. many of the scenes with Vincent and his Tiger pet are appealing, cuddly, and endearing. especially the moment when JMV runs toward his love interest in clichéd slow mo', only to bypass her and throw himself in the arms of his little Tiger pal for a big screen kiss. very amusing and classic Disney. the scenes where Roscoe Lee brown enchants Tim Conway and miniaturizes him are very funny and pretty surreal. there is also a lot of funny stuff with voodoo dolls even though voodoo is not a African belief. more like Haiti.some people might be uncomfortable with Roscoe Lee Brown's witch doctor and perceive it as mildly racist. i think that's taking things to seriously since the witch doctor role is done so broadly and doesn't amount to much more than a lot of "walla walla bing bang". besides, Brown's witch doctor has some very funny lines, especially in the scene where he meets with the America Medical Assoc. and begins making snide remarks and jabs at the American medical community.all in all this isn't a great movie or a all time great comedy, but it is definitely a very cute movie a good Disney film. mostly that's what a Disney movie should boil down to, they should be ever so cute and feel like Disney above all. after all, Disney isn't 'South Park' and it shouldn't be. like all of Disney's classic baby boomer comedies, 'Athlete' manages to have humour with some edge, but it doesn't forsake family values or wholesomeness. definitely a must for anyone who likes Disney and cute Bengal kitties.

bkoganbing When Coach John Amos and his assistant Tim Conway go looking for athletic talent for Merryvale College, they say they'll travel anywhere. And in The World's Greatest Athlete they go to East Africa in search of a legendary jungle boy raised in the wild whose athletic prowess is beyond belief.The subject of their search is Jan-Michael Vincent who plays the young Tarzan like man and he's every inch the athlete that former Tarzans like Johnny Weissmuller, Glenn Morris, and Buster Crabbe were. They have to use a little trickery to get him out of the jungle and away from his foster father, witch doctor Roscoe Lee Browne. Browne knows all the jungle remedies, but he's lived in the world outside the Kenyan veld and he's up to its challenges.But he's still got concern for his foster son who ain't used to civilization and all the things that entails. Among which include women in the person of shapely Dayle Haddon who covers him on the academic end of things at college. Talk about remedial education though, this is really stretching it.She's also got a jealous suitor in Danny Goldman. Goldman's a little ferret of a schemer, the would be Iago sends for Browne from Kenya to work his voodoo magic to get Vincent back to the woodland wilds and a clear path for Goldman back to Haddon. If that means him losing the big NCAA track meet where Vincent is going to represent Maryvale in all events like Jim Thorpe did years ago for Carlisle, so be it.Jan-Michael Vincent looks just fabulous in a loin cloth. I'm surprised he never was cast in a straight out Tarzan film. He actually did appear in one years later when he was much older and the bad guy in that one. Of course he just had to utter "Me Nanu.......You Jane" to Haddon whose character name of course was Jane.Vincent and Haddon get great support from the whole cast, especially Tim Conway who has to deal with being shrunk to three inches in height by Browne in a bar. Conway gets a nice fifteen minute sequence trying to deal with his unfamiliar surroundings. Nancy Walker has a fine bit as a Mrs. Magoo landlady who can't recognize a tiger that Vincent has brought from Africa as a pet. He must have gotten him from the zoo in Mombasa because as most kids know, tigers aren't native to Africa.This was the final feature film appearance of Billy DeWolfe who plays the dean of the college and Goldman's uncle. I suspect he would have had more of a role had health permitted it.The World's Greatest Athlete is one of Disney's better screen comedies for the Seventies. And as we learn in the end, Jan-Michael Vincent might not just be The World's Greatest Athlete.

C. Sean Currie (hypestyle) "The World's Greatest Athlete" stars John Amos ("Good Times), Tim Conway ("The Carol Burnett Show"), and Jan-Michael Vincent ("Airwolf"). The plot follows Amos' college sports coach who is down on his luck. His leadership has not produced a winning team for his school; he is under threat of being fired if he doesn't find a way to turn the sports program around. On a vacation to Africa, he and Conway discover Nanu—an orphaned Caucasian boy who was the son of missionaries, he was adopted by local villagers. He is a superb athlete, being able to outrun a gazelle. The coach sees his fortunes right in front of him—but Nanu is uninterested in the Western world. So the coach concocts a scheme to trick Nanu into following him to America, where he promptly is enrolled as a student and made a star of the track and field program. Will the coach's deception be revealed? Will Nanu find that he likes America and wants to stay? The under-rated character actor Roscoe Lee Browne plays a witchdoctor in a supporting role. Of curious interest is how the racial subtexts in the film were cleverly handled. By the early 70's, Disney studios was not known for casting African-Americans in prominent roles—the most obvious exception would be the still-controversial Song of the South. Here, Amos is the ostensible lead, with Conway as the sidekick, instead of vice-versa. In another decade, the Nordic athlete Nanu might have been portrayed as being worshipped as a god by the villagers—fortunately the filmmakers bypass outdated notions of the "white jungle king" and portray Nanu as a young man satisfied with tribal life.