| The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes | |
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1969 film poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Butler |
| Produced by | Bill Anderson |
| Written by | Joseph L. McEveety |
| Starring | Kurt Russell Cesar Romero Joe Flynn William Schallert Alan Hewitt |
| Music by | Robert F. Brunner |
| Cinematography | Frank Phillips |
| Editing by | Cotton Warburton |
| Studio | Walt Disney Productions |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
| Release date(s) | December 31, 1969 |
| Running time | 91 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is a Disney film from 1969, starring Alan Hewitt, Kurt Russell, Frank Webb, and Joe Flynn. It is released by Buena Vista Distribution Company.
It was the first in a trilogy of films made by Disney using the setting of Medfield College.
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Dexter Reilly (Kurt Russell) and his friends attend small, private Medfield College, which cannot afford to buy a computer. The students persuade wealthy businessman A.J. Arno (Cesar Romero) to donate an old computer to the college. Arno is the secret head of a large illegal gambling ring, which used the computer for its operations.
While installing a replacement part during a thunderstorm, Reilly is zapped and becomes a human computer. He now has superhuman mathematical talent, can read and remember the contents of an encyclopedia volume in a few minutes, and speak a language fluently after reading one textbook. His new abilities make Reilly a worldwide celebrity, and Medfield's best chance to win a televised quiz tournament with a $100,000 prize.
Reilly single-handedly leads Medfield's team in victories against other colleges. During the tournament, a trigger word causes Reilly to unknowingly recite on television details of Arno's gambling ring. Arno's henchmen kidnap Reilly and plan to kill him, but his friends help him escape. During the escape Dexter suffers a concussion which, during the tournament final against rival Springfield State, gradually returns his mental abilities to normal; one of Reilly's friends, however, is able to answer the final question ("What is the Geographic center of the contiguous United States?"). Medfield wins the $100,000 prize, and Arno is arrested.
The setting of this film (as well as its two sequels), was the fictitious Medfield College, first used in the 1961 film The Absent-Minded Professor and its sequel Son of Flubber.
This is one of the extremely rare on screen appearances of voice actor Frank Welker.
* Not credited on-screen.
This film was remade as the TV movie The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes in 1995 starring Kirk Cameron as "Dexter Riley".
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