FLIPPER
US, 1963, 93 minutes, Colour.
Chuck Connors, Luke Halpin.
Directed by James B. Clark.
Flipper has had several lives, television and film in the 1960s, television and film the 1990s. There has also been a continual popularity with films about dolphins, Day of the Dolphin.
The film was directed by James B. Clark whose career included many films about nature and animals, Dog of Flanders, Misty, Island of the Blue Dolphins. He is it home with this kind of material, many scenes at sea as well as under water.
The film is set in Miami, fishermen suffering from a plague of red fish and absence of fish for supplies. The dolphins were seen as something of enemies, despite the playfulness, as needing so many fish for food.
Chuck Connors, Paul Hogan in the 1990s film, plays the fisherman who works with his young son, Luke Halpin in the 1960s, Elijah Wood in the 1990s, a very strong bonding between father and son. However, when a huge hurricane batters the coast, the community fight to save their properties.
Later, when fishing, a dolphin is struck by an arrow from an enthusiastic young scuba diver and the Sandy decides that he should put the dolphin outl of its misery. However, he cannot and brings the dolphin home where he tends it, to his father’s displeasure. However, with a young visiting friend, he tends the dolphin and it recovers. He calls it Flipper.
1. The popularity of Flipper? 1960s version? 1990s? Television?
2. The perennial popularity of dolphins, the explanations that they are not fish but are animals, their eyes, mouths, feeding, mating, giving birth? And the playfulness?
3. The Florida settings, the coastal island, sequences of sea, the storm and the hurricane, the town, the post office, homes? The musical score, the song?
4. Porter, working as a fisherman, bonding with his son? Sandy, his age, fishing with his father? The scenes at sea, the homecoming, hurricane, helicopter messagel, taking the boat to safety in the creek, recovering it after the storm? The death of a friend during the hurricane, his speech at his funeral? The lack of fish and the problems for the industry? His explanations of the dolphins, the wounding of Flipper, his lack of enthusiasm for feeding Flipper, reprimanding his son, the reconciliation, the happy ending?
5. Sandy, young boy, enthusiastic, with his father, the hurricane, scuba diving, the injury to Flipper, his wanting to put him out of his misery, getting the net and saving him, his mother helping, Kim and her help, the difficulty in feeding Flipper, his father’s disapproval, reconciliation?
6. Sandy’s mother, kind, at home, helping with the injured Flipper?
7. Kim, stranded during the hurricane, befriending Sandy, her father’s concerned phone call, scuba diving, helping with Flipper? The
8. The adults on the island, the postmistress and sheltering people, the phone calls and reassurance, the old man and his getting in, the man whose
house was on fire and his being dragged back? Surviving the hurricane?
9. Audience interest in dolphins, the playfulness?
