The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)

Taking Disney Week on a slightly different tangent this week, away from the DCOM's and away from the odd curiosities I have saved in my watchlist and instead in the micro movie cinematic universe of Dexter Riley, starting with the first movie: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. These were some of the first movies I saved to my Disney+ watchlist, although one of the x2 sequels: Now You See Me is missing... this is why I love streaming... so I only have 2/3rds of the movie trinity available to stream at the moment... but the point is: these were sort of foundation movies for what would go on to be a very established Disney formula: "the school scientist experiments lead to crazy hi-jinks" kind of formula, that granted cropped up a handful of times in various Disney movies before this one, but I think it was the Dexter Riley trilogy that really cemented it. 

Dexter Riley (a very young Kurt Russell) and his pals, all students at Medfield College, convince A. J. Arno (Cesar Romero) a wealthy businessman who moonlights as the ringleader of an illegal gambling cartel, to donate an expensive computer to the school after a request from their tutor Professor Quigley (William Schallert) to the college board is turned down. The cut in finding from Mr. Arno in exchange for the computer angers Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) who swears he will keep a close on them all, and Dexter especially... As Prof Quigley begins to carry out a demonstration to the class of the new computers power, something goes wrong which blows a part and Dexter offers to get a replacement for the Professor before tomorrow, but whilst he's installing the new part later that evening, he gets a powerful electric shock and somehow absorbs all the calculating power of the computer! The following morning Dexter absolutely smashes a 1 hour 30 test in 4 1/2 minutes, catching the attention of Prof Quigley and after some medical analysis it is determined that Dexter has become the "Human Computer"! After a brief appearance on TV at the college, Dexter is quickly catapulted to fame as the smartest guy in the world and as parties across the country begin to vie for Dexter's attention, with Medfield wanting him to lead the college in the Universal Encyclopedia quiz tournament for $100,000 and Dean Collingsgood (Alan Hewitt) of Springfield State College wanting Dexter for himself, it is Mr. Arno who initially gets his attention however, setting up a meeting between himself and Dexter which leads to Dexter spending the night in jail after an illegal casino raid, with Dean Higgins and Dean Collingsgood both getting caught up as they pursue Dexter. Still not sure on where he wants to spend his future, Dexter makes the decision to stay on a Medfield when he witnesses his friends scraping together the bail bond to free him from jail and with him as the team captain, the quiz team make it to the semi-final of the Universal Encyclopedia quiz tournament and all is going well until the phrase "Applejack" prompts Dexter to begin reeling off all the details of Mr. Arno's illicit gambling ring, which immediately catches the attention of Mr. Arno as he watches on on television. Furious that his entire gambling ring nearly got found out, Mr. Arno sends Chillie (Richard Bakalyan) to pick up Dexter and Dexter subsequently goes missing. Meanwhile his friends Pete (Frank Webb) and Annie (Debbie Paine) figure out that Applejack is Mr. Arno's code name and pass on a recording of Dexter's odd phrases to the police, before undertaking some investigating of their own and follow Chillie to a mansion where Dexter is being held captive, and inside Dexter overhears Chillie discuss with the henchmen of their plan to have him drown in a lake... Hatching a plan to rescue Dexter, Pete leads the rest of the class to the house masquerading as a decorating company decorating the house, and in the resulting chaos as they make a move to snatch Dexter before Mr. Arno's henchmen can move him away, Dexter falls out of window whilst inside a trunkcase and suffers a concussion. As the students try to escape with Dexter, still contained inside the trunk, Mr. Arno and the henchmen give chase and after a brief car chase scene the students manage to give them the slip, literally, with some red paint. The students make it back with Dexter just in time for the second half of the final with Springfield College but Dexter is visibly struggling with the answers until at the final question he is totally unable to answer having lost his power but one of the other teammates is able to step up and secure the $100,000 prize for Medfield. In the closing scenes, Mr. Arno and his henchmen are arrested and Dean Higgins makes the decision to spend the award money on fixing the plumbing!

This was... alright. But just alright really, which is a shame because I was sort of going into it with pretty high expectations but it wasn't anything that special and mostly just a typical late 60's family movie. There wasn't anything particularly bad as such: the acting was decent, it was interesting enough that it kept my attention, the pacing was maybe a bit of a see-saw; it started off rushing through things pretty quickly before completely reversing course and slowing right down but there wasn't anything particularly bad about it, it was just completely fine. But just fine. All the way through. It was a bit of a curiosity watching a very young Kurt Russell on film, but that's an additional novelty to be enjoyed retrospectively so not really something the movie should be merited for. But it was fine. Just... fine.

Perhaps my only nitpicking point, as I previously mentioned, was that the pacing was a bit off. Dexter is gifted his power in the accident and then is just immediately the smartest guy in the world and is jetting off around all these places. I think it might have been better to flesh that part of the story out a bit; have him discover his power and it become obvious a bit more slower but they just sort of jumped straight to it. I guess because there was the whole rest of the movie to cram in yet, but it was a bit jarring, and then there is a complete reversal on that as the last 45 odd minutes of the movie focus on Dexter being kidnapped and that whole situation resolving with the 'will he won't he' dilemna with the quiz show final.

Storyline-wise though, I expected this to be the typical coming-of-age style troupe where the lead character realises their power shouldn't distract from what should be held more dear to them e.t.c but instead it didn't go down that avenue at all, and it was more about Dexter's sudden rise to fame and sudden prominence leading to his power getting him in trouble. Again a little bit formulaic but actually it didn't feel predictable here, even retrospectively, and on the whole the story felt engaging enough that it kept me interested, and I thought it would end with Dexter having to learn to live with his new found ability rather than him lose it completely and be back to square one. It wasn't completely original, but it had enough original about it that it stood out against other movies with the same theme.

So far as acting was concerned everyone was pretty decent and I mentioned earlier the novelty of seeing a young Kurt Russell was pretty interesting. But similarly Joe Flynn was pretty decent as the Dean and I remember his face from The Million Dollar Duck, another Disney Week movie I've covered! I feel like some of the other characters could have been more fleshed out. A. J. Arno for example is essentially just a cookie cutter villian in the 2nd half of the movie and despite Cesar Romero being cast in the role, I don't think he's really allowed to act out his full potential here. Similarly William Schallert as Prof. Quigley I felt definitely had ability to add more character depth to his role but instead is just the vanilla teacher role and is never really fully exercised.

Everything else was otherwise adequately executed so as to make for a competent movie. Although dated by todays standards, the soundtrack was absolutely fine. It got a little bit cheesy in spots, but was decent enough. There was some pretty decent cinematography but I think there was room for expression that wasn't really taken and the tone was kept mostly quite sensible aside from the car chase scene. And production-wise despite the sightly wibbly wobbly pacing the movie was adequately put together to piece together the central storyline of what happens to Dexter when he acquires his gift.

Considering that the Dexter Riley trilogy nowadays enjoys something of a cult status, I was a bit underwhelmed by this opening gambit. Maybe the other x2 films are so much better, I don't know? But this was just a bang average movie as far as I'm concerned! And I didn't really excel in any direction so as to stand out against anything else I've watched from the same time period. It wasn't unenjoyable, not by any stretch, but there was elements where I felt it didn't really live up to the potential it could have been. With a bit more refinement, a bit more fleshing out, I think it could have been carried from just a decent movie to a pretty good movie, but it left me feeling a bit... lacking... but it was ok. But just ok. 3 out of 5.