Flick Pick: The Barefoot Executive

The Barefoot Executive
(Disney, 1971)

Nothing brilliant here, just a harmless and enjoyable little flick from simpler days, with Kurt Russell almost before he was shaving, a lot of fine character actors, and a promising new kid named John Ritter. It was a gentle reminder that the media moguls on their best day could be replaced by chimps with no one the wiser, and even they know it. It's even funnier and more ironic now, with Disney/ABC being one of the largest media conglomerates on the planet, rather than just a little family business in Burbank, as they were when this was made. Funnier still when you realize that ABC once had the opportunity to buy Disney outright in the 1960s, and turned it down because they didn't think it had much future. So instead, 30 years later, Disney bought ABC. "Hollywood genius" is almost always an oxymoron, something this flick illustrates sweetly.