Author: paloma

14 may This movie is typical 1960s family fare, which isn’t really a bad thing

He famously created and produced the Flipper movies and TV show, so the similarity is quite understandable. (He also brought Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges, to the screen and the underwater scenes of the sunken bomber for the James Bond film Thunderball were filmed in his studios.) He was also a vocal advocate for family-friendly programming, which he believed at the time (and many believe now) was in short supply, casting himself in the mold of Walt Disney.

It's also one of the few movies that feature Jim and Henny Backus

I first saw this as a youngster on a Saturday night movie, probably on ABC or possibly NBC. Only a few years after its theatrical release, it hadn't yet dated badly, even though we had already entered in the cynical post-Woodstock, post-Vietnam era. We kids could still look back at the '60s as a very bright, fun, mod and groovy decade, and this movie brought that all back. This is very much a snapshot of the era, complete with ecological awareness of the oceans. It fit in well in the era of not just Flipper, but also Sealab 2020. Overall, I give it eight stars not really because of the quality of the movie, but mostly for nostalgic value.

The cast was not exactly brimming with movie stars, but they were nevertheless household names, bringing their familiar older woman sex personas from the little screen to the silver screen. Tony Randall plays the uptight, meticulous father role that likely got him cast as Felix Unger a year later, essentially the same character as Fred Miller with a few neuroses thrown in. Ken Berry plays the clumsy wimp a la Captain Parmenter, with a touch of underhandedness from the evil twin roles he liked to play on occasion. Jim Backus was all money-grubbing blustery blowhard, like Thurston Howell. Berry and Backus also worked together in Wake Me When the War Is Over, a TV movie broadcast only months after this was released.