Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Purely Joyful Movie!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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

I could never give a truly bad review to a film with as talented a cast as this one. One of the things I liked about the Walt Disney Studios is that they gave employment to a lot of familiar faces from the big studio era when they were finding it hard to get work. But this was not one of the better efforts from the Magic Kingdom.Disney's All American hero in films at this time was Kurt Russell who plays a kid who is a mail delivery clerk at the UBC network by day and a night school student looking to better himself. By accident he discovers that the chimpanzee his girlfriend Heather North has can pick winning television shows. His taste mirrors that of the American public which is a proposition a lot might agree with.Russell is promoted to a Vice Presidency in charge of programming keeping the chimp's participation a closely guarded secret. But a whole lot of vested interests want to find out. They stop at nothing as you will see.Some might call this film cute and innocuous as most of the Russell Disney flicks were, but I think The Barefoot Executive is the worst of what he did for that studio. To me the whole thing was so dopey and even a cast that has Harry Morgan, Wally Cox, Alan Hewitt, Joe Flynn, and Iris Adrian in it can't sell this one. I will say that Adrian has only a small bit, but it is memorable.John Ritter is also in The Barefoot Executive playing a role that might have led him to be cast as Jack Tripper in Three's Company. Maybe the film did his career some good.I'd see The Barefoot Executive should be seen for the marvelous cast, but I think you'll agree with me when you see how silly it is.

Young idealistic Steven Post (Kurt Russell) wants to get ahead in the TV industry but obnoxious boss Francis Wilbanks (Joe Flynn) constantly ignores him. Then Steven's loving girlfriend Jennifer (Heather North) gets a chimp (don't ask) who can predict what TV shows will be hits (!!!). Steve uses the chimp (without telling anyone) and becomes vice-president of a network in no time (just like real life huh?)...but Wilbanks is VERY suspicious of how he knows what shows will be popular.VERY silly Disney comedy. The humor and slapstick are either stupid and/or predictable, the characters are 1-dimensional and the lines would be laughed off "The Brady Bunch" as being too corny...but the kids will like this. Unlike the G rated movies today there's no crude humor, no violence and no jokes about bodily functions. This basically has good clean (if silly) humor.I admit most of the movie had me rolling my eyes but I did keep watching. I actually did laugh a few times towards the end (the reactions of a woman being interviewed on the street were very funny) and it was fun seeing Russell and John Ritter so young. Also Flynn has his moments as does Harry Morgan as the president of the network. North is sweet (but not TOO sweet) as Jen and look for Bill Daily at the end. And the chimp was adorable! So it is silly and predictable with a title song that makes you want to cut your ears off...but it's perfect for the kids. I give it a 5.

Nice, safe family comedy featuring a television network, a cute/funny chimp, and a young Kurt Russell in the prime of his Disney phase. Kurt is a low-level employee with a big television network with high-level ideas. By shear chance, he discovers that his neighbor's pet chimp is able to correctly predict the big ratings winners for each week's programs, and surreptitiously uses the animal to move up within the organization.The chimp demonstrating his disdain for poor programming (clearly enunciated raspberries, followed by screams of displeasure, and culminating in his throwing some destructive object at the screen) sent me into fits of laughter.But it also gave me (as a seven year old) an inkling into how the television industry works, and thereby planted the seeds of a life-long interest in the boob tube. And to this day, I am still wondering what the subject matter of "Devil Dan" is, and why it was so much more of a winner program than "The Happy Harringtons"...Get the kids away from "Nickelodeon" for a couple of hours with this campy treat...

One of the funniest comedies I've seen yet. What made this so was the interplay between Wally Cox and Joe Flynn [one of my favorite comics]. The bit on the building ledge was too much and had me rolling. The bellowing company prez was well played by Harry Morgan, a man I well remember from the early 60's sitcom "Pete & Gladys" where he played the put upon hubby, Pete Porter. John Ritter performed the snobbish, suck-up nephew to the hilt who, of course, gets his just payment in the end. 4 stars.