Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar

A brief culture shock. Choosing an old Disney real animal and adventure film, I suddenly felt transported to the Russ Meyer universe. Logically, no boobs, no small town drama, no murder and manslaughter, but the style of storytelling and the aesthetics from the master of artful sleaze. The voiceover, the camera, the use of music, the editing technique, the pace. It is through the use of this technique that a plot framework is created from supposedly dull animal films. It is minimal, but sufficient to fill an entertaining feature film. Wonderful landscapes, a likeable hero and countless interesting shots. Indeed, you constantly wonder how the creative team realised the unusual scenes. This is certainly the other side of the coin, as not everything must have been in the best interests of the animals. Whatever the case, the viewer's fear of a threatening animal is certainly not taken away, but this living creature is brought closer in a holistic way and a possible enemy image is softened. All this in an entertaining and family-friendly 75 minutes.

If you like nature films and stories about animals, this is a must see. Plus, the narration by Rex Allen is great.

The film is beautiful, not only in narrative, but the landscape of Washington state was used extensively. Winston Hibler, the director was an avid choice for such a task, as he had directed and produced Disney nature documentaries (True Life Adventure series) in the 1950s.

The star of the movie, Charlie the cougar was very believable and was obviously coached well. It must have been a hard job to train him.

There are two scenes that he was great in. The first was when he happened upon some barn cats drinking milk, and being just a big house cat, he joined in. The second scene was Charlie riding logs down a waterway through the woods. I'm very surprised they were able to get him to do that.

A great ending, as were most Disney family films of the time.

A lumberman finds a young cougar in need of help. To young to be on his own the cat soon takes up with the rugged camp workers. Nicknamed "Good Time Charlie' his antics amuse everyone at first. His wild nature eventually begins to cause trouble and reintroducing him into his natural habitat becomes an issue. This film is among those wonderful Disney nature films that were common in the 50's and 60's Lots of action, beautiful scenery and some endearing animal to charm you. These films were not long but included fascinating glimpses into wildlife and the effects of human contact. Unlike Disney's animated talking animals the animals in these films remained true to their own nature. They also make great travel films for seeing the western states.

This film has not been seen by me in quite a few years. It came on the Disney Channel in the wee hours of the morning. I stayed up to watch it, and found it even more entertaining than the first time. The story, the scenery and the characters are as good as they come. I know that if anyone takes the time to view this film, they will find it definitely worth seeing a second time. It's very memorable in more ways than one. I would recommend this film to anyone because it is both entertaining and educational for all concerned.

s

This is one of those movies you just watch for the pictures. There isn't much of a story and there isn't much acting, aside from the animals, but the scenery is great and it's amazing they can train animals like that.

It's worth watching just to see actual footage of one of the last log drives on the Clearwater river. Not long after the movie was made, the Clearwater was dammed up, and that whole beautiful valley was killed by the muck and slack-water behind Dworshak dam. If they tried to make a movie like this these days, they'd have to do it with CGI, because you just can't pile up 600,000 feet of old-growth logs and dump them in a river any more, even if you could find one that wasn't dammed up. The animal rights people would probably have something to say about having a cougar jump into a pen full of sheep and run over top of a bunch of piglets, too.

There are some hokey parts of the production such as the "moonlight" cougar romp under a bright sunny sky, and the dynamiting of a small pile of driftwood that is supposed to be a "log jam" (after lighting the "wick", no less), but in the genre of "animal pictures" this is one of the best.