Albert Einstein helps a young man who's in love with Einstein's niece to catch her attention by pretending temporarily to be a great physicist.
Acting
Matthau's scene-stealing, cigar-chomping Einstein.
Costume
Glorious 1950s Princeton academia aesthetic.
Writing
Physics puns that somehow land.
Director
Fred Schepisi
Tim Robbins
Ed Walters
Meg Ryan
Catherine Boyd
Walter Matthau
Albert Einstein
Lou Jacobi
Kurt Gödel
Gene Saks
Boris Podolsky
Joseph Maher
Nathan Liebknecht
Stephen Fry
James Moreland
Tony Shalhoub
Bob Rosetti
Frank Whaley
Frank
Charles Durning
Louis Bamberger
Keene Curtis
Eisenhower
Alice Playten
Gretchen
Danny Zorn
Dennis
Helen Hanft
Rose
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The real Kurt Gödel was so paranoid about poisoning he only ate food his wife tasted first; the film's version is much more social.
This belongs to a bizarre '90s subgenre of 'famous historical figures as romantic comedy wingmen' that absolutely nobody asked for.
US
