Product Description

In the great Disney tradition of wild family fun, a young Kurt Russell stars as Steven Post -- an ambitious mailroom clerk at a second-rate TV network. With his eye on the boardroom, and getting nowhere with the studio's top dog, he makes a career-changing discovery. His girlfriend's lovable pet chimp can pick a hit show every time! His secret for success turns into madcap monkey business when he makes vice president and jealous rivals want in on the act. Ride along with narrow escapes and a classic cast featuring Joe Flynn and Harry Morgan in a comedic climb up the corporate ladder that will leave you howling for more!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35516 in DVD
• Brand: Disney
• Released on: 2004-04-12
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.com
A young Kurt Russell stars in this good-natured comedy. Steve Stone is an ambitious mailroom clerk at a third-rate television network when he stumbles onto the fact that his girlfriend's pet chimpanzee, Raffles, can pick ratings winners. Suddenly he's well on his way up the corporate ladder and getting his network to No. 1. Keeping Raffles and his abilities a secret provide the perfect setting for wacky, wicked comedy. The truly funny cast of Joe Flynn, Harry Morgan, Wally Cox, John Ritter, and others make up the executives and their cohorts. Not wanting to be made fools of, the executives try to save their dignity as well as their jobs by relocating Raffles. There's lots of physical comedy and downright silliness. Talk about monkey business! Released in 1971, this film can appear dated at times, but the story still holds up today. A likable, fun movie that harks back to a time of innocent mischief. Refreshingly void of techno gadgets and helmet laws, this film is just good, clean, wholesome fun for the whole family. --Peggy Maltby-Etra

Customer Reviews

One of the best
I remember watching this movie when I was young. A guy who attends night school comes up with these wild ideas to pitch to his girlfriend's boss (one of the NBC exec's) and his ideas are all wrong. That is, intil he discovered a chimp who can pick the top rated shows of the week. It's easy to laugh out loud when you're watching this movie, and it's one of the classics that entertain without the use of sex, drugs, swearing, any of the stuff used in hollywood today. Two thumbs up!

Excellent work from one of my favorite periods of live-action Disney films
The Barefoot Executive may appear to just be a light and fluffy 1960s/1970s-style Disney comedy, and it can certainly be enjoyed that way, but you don't have to dig very far below the surface to find a subtly clever satire of the television industry with a very insider feel. Having worked in radio for a while, and having friends and family who do or did work in television, as well as reading a lot of behind the scenes books on television programs, a lot of the jabs at the industry feel spot on.

The humorous premise, probably stemming from a common joke about this, is that a "monkey" (actually a chimpanzee here) could pick a television stations' programming and do just as good or even a better job at it. Screenwriter Joseph McEveety and director Robert Butler get the dynamics between various levels of employees right, including the bigwigs. There are nice, continuing threads of intertwined sycophancy, insular ideas, fears of getting canned or demoted over ratings or general incompetence, and self-righteous assertiveness. Some of those things may be contradictory, but nevertheless they're representative of life within the walls of a broadcast media outlet--and probably many other places of employment as well. To an extent, the personal dynamics aspects of The Barefoot Executive are suggestive of an early version of Office Space (1999). But towards the end of the film, The Barefoot Executive nicely diverges into slightly more absurdist territory.

Raffles, the chimpanzee, is charismatic and impressive. But an unexpected surprise was the scope and chemistry of the cast, which includes veteran character actors and Disney regulars Joe Flynn and Harry Morgan, veteran television actor Wally Cox, the woman who has supplied the voice of Daphne in most of the Scooby-Doo series and animated films since 1970, Heather North, and in one of his first films, John Ritter. Ritter is on fire here. He steals almost every one of his scenes. And that's quite a feat seeing that the star is an engaging Kurt Russell, who had already made a string of very successful films for Disney.

Another Great Disney Movie , BUT WHY FULL SCREEN?
Ah, it great to see Disney finally cutting loose from their film vault this and other great live-action films. Kurt Russell and especially Hayley Mills were true bread and butter income for a host of Disney films and were personal favorites of Uncle Walt himself. But why oh why does Disney treat these two wonderful actor's films to lousy Pan & Scan transfers? Of the six Mills pictures, only half are in their OAR. As far as Russell, I think only one of his flicks is in its OAR, "Now You See Him, Now You Don't"! A sad, sad situation for 2008 technology and an insult to both of these fine actors.

UPDATE: 04.29.08

As someone has kindly pointed out that this movie was an open matte from a 1.85:1 print, you wonder why they would do this, especially back in 1971? Disney's logic continues to befuddle even today.