The Barefoot Executive (1971)

A film that deteriorates as it goes on. <em>'The Barefoot Executive'</em> begins in entertaining fashion, as it sets up the plot with Steven (Kurt Russell) and chimp Raffles. It's all enjoyable enough, it's a cool and amusing concept. The first act is good. However, after a middling middle act it then produces a relatively terrible third act - with unnecessary focus put on the characters of Joe Flynn (Francis) and Wally Cox (Mertons). They definitely didn't know how to end this, the final lot of scenes are so pointless and predictable. That's a shame, as the opening chunk of the film is more than up to scratch. Russell gives another acceptable performance, Flynn is actually pretty solid when his character isn't shoehorned upfront. Heather North is alright as Jennifer, if a little plain. The chimp is as cute as you'd expect. It looked like a film that I would thoroughly like at first, sadly it got comparatively worse as it went on. I would still say it's better than a lot of other works from Disney, it just could've/should've been greater.