The World's Greatest Athlete
The World's Greatest Athlete is a 1973 American sports comedy film directed by Robert Scheerer and starring John Amos, Roscoe Lee Browne, Tim Conway, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. Released by Walt Disney Productions, it is one of the few wide-release Hollywood sports films to look at the world of track and field. In the film, two coaches Sam Archer (Amos) and Milo Jackson (Conway) make use of jungle boy Nanu (Vincent) and have him make history by winning every event at the NCAA 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's final roles before he died the following year.
Plot
Sam Archer and his assistant Milo Jackson are coaches at Merrivale College. They have lost every game in every sport which they have coached, raising the concerns of Dean Maxwell, 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 in Southern Africa.
More details
| author | Gerald Gardner |
|---|---|
| contentLocation | Zambia |
| director | Robert Scheerer |
| editor | Cotton Warburton |
| genre | adventure comedy |
| keywords | abc-tv american broadcasting company bengal tiger cheetah coach college athletics framing device howard cosell jungle boy love interest machiavellian niccolò machiavelli return home scheme southern africa tarzan their way |
| musicBy | Marvin Hamlisch |
| producer | Bill Walsh |
| productionCompany | Walt Disney Pictures |
| publisher | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
| recordedAt | California |
| theme | animals children's slapstick sports sports comedy |