Man’s Favorite Sport at 60: Howard Hawks Put Rock Hudson through the Wringer

When I first saw Howard Hawks’ 1964 romantic comedy Man’s Favorite Sport? many years ago, I was unimpressed. As a fan of Hawks’ seminal, screwball rom-coms of the ‘30s and ‘40s Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday and Ball of Fire, I thought this one he did in his late career was derivative and silly. And, yet, it’s a derivative, silly film I find myself going back to every now and again.

Maybe it’s because the whole movie, adapted from Pat Frank’s short story “The Girl Who Almost Got Away,” borrows the straight-laced-guy-meets-unpredictable-gal plot from Bringing Up Baby. However, instead of Cary Grant’s engaged paleontologist getting harassed (and eventually won over) by Katharine Hepburn’s dizzy heiress, we have Rock Hudson, already a rom-com star thanks to the cotton-candy comedies he did with Doris Day, having to deal with not one but two daffy dames. (Hawks wanted Grant to star in Man’s Favorite Sport?, but he opted to instead star in Stanley Donen’s spy comedy Charade.)

Hudson plays Roger Willoughby, an outdoors salesman (at Abercrombie & Fitch!) who’s known for being an exceptional fisherman. His toupee-wearing boss (John McGiver) requests that he take part in a yearly fishing tournament held at a lake resort. This idea comes from Isolde “Easy” Muller (Maria Perschy), the resort owner’s daughter, and Abigail Page (Paula Prentiss), the resort’s PR director. 

Unfortunately, Willoughby has never fished a day in his life; he’s built his reputation by listening to other fishermen and simply regurgitating their expertise. When he tells the ladies about this (in a loud piano museum?), Page uses the info to blackmail him into taking part anyway. Willoughby already doesn’t like ol’ girl; they first met when she stole his parking space and he got a ticket for leaving his car in the wrong place.

Most of Man’s Favorite Sport? has the female BFFs trying to teach Hudson’s so-called outdoorsman how to properly fish. His attempts are predictably slapsticky, as he gets hefty catches through dumb luck and, during one fishing session, unlikely help from a wandering bear. Although this movie has two beautiful ladies making this guy’s sporting life quite miserable, the story—penned by sitcom writers John Fenton Murray and Steve McNeil, with longtime Hawks collaborator Leigh Brackett (The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo) doing an uncredited rewrite—sets up the inevitable romance between Hudson and Prentiss’ characters. Much like in Bringing Up Baby, when Hepburn adorably wore Grant out until he eventually said “I love you, I think,” Page works on Willoughby’s last nerve until he inevitably finds this girl to be a lovely loon. (Perschy, an Austrian-born beauty whom Hawks discovered—and later dated—also takes part in kooky bits with Hudson, like a ripped-dress scene that’s a rehash of the beloved ripped-dress scene between Hepburn and Grant in Bringing Up Baby.)

Although Hawks claimed never to be a director who put coded messages in a picture, that hasn’t stopped writers and critics from giving their own takes on the bawdy narrative of Man’s Favorite Sport? In his book Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, Todd McCarthy wrote that “the entire story is easily read as an allegory about sex, experience versus inexperience, and experience versus ineptitude.” 

Molly Haskell, who also came around to liking the film after initially dismissing it, took it even further in a 1971 Village Voice essay, calling it an Adam and Eve tale where Eve is the sexually dominant one: “Hudson is a virgin, who has written a ‘How to’ book on sex while harboring a deep, fastidious horror of it. His masculinity is a lie.” Haskell also wrote that Prentiss “must take the initiative in Hudson’s sexual initiation, for which the fishing exploit is metaphor. Fish are phallic symbols, of course, and there is even a scene in which a loose fish thrashes around inside Hudson’s pants, causing him to jump and jerk uncontrollably.” 

Considering how Hudson would later make headlines as the first closeted movie star to be taken down by AIDS, Man’s Favorite Sport? inadvertently mocks Hudson’s matinee-idol image, continuously characterizing him as a phony who doesn’t know how to use his rod, especially around the opposite sex.

It turns out Hawks wasn’t a big fan of Man’s Favorite Sport? When it hit theaters, it only made $6 million and was, in Haskell’s words, “universally ridiculed.” (Stanley Kubrick’s nuclear-war satire Dr. Strangelove, which came out at the same time, raked in $9 million.) Even though the movie clocks in at nearly two hours (which was, even then, too damn long for a frilly rom-com), Hawks said Universal took out 20 minutes of scenes—“plants,” as he called them—that were supposed to make the next scene funny. 

However, there have been accounts that Hawks made the production a trying time for everyone. The screenwriters complained about Hawks’ vague collaborating methods. His directing approach drove Hudson batty, clearly looking for the actor to do a Cary Grant impersonation. And even though Hawks switched studios to make sure that Prentiss would co-star, he often brought the actress to the verge of tears. 

Nevertheless, Man’s Favorite Sport? is an underseen film from an iconic, Old Hollywood auteur that’s become something of a guilty pleasure for me. From the goofy Henry Mancini score to the form-fitting costumes legendary designer Edith Head made for Prentiss and Perschy (like their shapely scuba outfits) to the artificial sets that scream “All of this is happening on a backlot,” the whole thing is playful, good-natured comfort food that contemporary Hollywood literally doesn’t make anymore. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, this old-school, wacky-ass love story may get you and your significant other in the mood to do some lovey-dovey, freaky-sneaky stuff.

Craig D. Lindsey is a Houston-based writer. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @unclecrizzle.