What passed for family entertainment back in the early 1960's. Producer Ivan Tors in an attempt to do the Disney family movie thing put together this very mediocre film. The story was co authored by Ricou Browning a man known for wearing the "creature" suit in the the Creature From The Black Lagoon film series.
Manly Chuck Conners is the a fisherman and Dad to a a young actor played by Luke Halpin who made a career out of acting next to a dolphin in two Flipper movies and a TV series. After finding an injured dolphin Halpin nurses the mammal back to health and forms a bond with it. Along comes Chuck Conners who wants his son to get rid of the dolphin (now named Flipper) as it will eat all of his catch of fish. After a few adventures with include Flipper leading Chuck Conners to a bunch of fish and fighting off a shark to save Halpin from being eaten, Chuck finally sees the error of his ways.
There is so much to say about this film outside of the fact that the story is pretty lame, the direction almost nonexistent and the acting fairly flat for the most part. The fact that a highly intelligent creature like a dolphin could be treated as some kid’s pet only good for doing tricks is highly questionable and kind of offensive.
Ivan Tors, whose studio was based in Florida went on to produce another epic TV series about another boy's love for a big scary black bear called Gentle Ben. Well when you're hot you're hot I guess.
The screenplay for Flipper was written by Arthur Weiss, the film runs 87 minutes. The Flipper theme song was very popular for a while.
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