Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar

This is a really fun movie with great narration. The acting is sub-par generally, but this only seems to add to the effect of a rough logging camp and its workers.

Adults should find this film enjoyable, but it's mainly for young people. This film deals with issues that youth will find prescient: loneliness, alienation, fitting-in, and growing up... all through that scampish yet delightful cougar.

Much better than Disney's silly, flashy, A.D.D. inducing, garish animated movies of recent years; "Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar" should not be overlooked, parents.

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.

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.

Just a lot of fun to watch, "Charlie the Lonesome Cougar" proves that story is everything. You don't need great actors or great sets or special effects if the story is good. The wildlife footage is amazing. Watching real animals behave naturally is far more entertaining than nine out of ten CGI movies with their anthropomorphic animals speaking with movie star voices. If you're looking for family entertainment that will expose your kids to real animals in an entertaining story, you simply can't go wrong renting this film. It's one of Disney's all-time best. (Basically, anything narrated by Rex Allen is good.)

Winston Hibler directed this pleasant story from Walt Disney studios about a group of loggers in the Pacific Northwest who adopt an orphaned cougar cub they found in the woods, and make him their unofficial mascot, who entertains them with his playful antics throughout camp. When he gets bigger, it isn't quite so funny, since he tends to raid and wreck their kitchen! When Charlie gets lost, he embarks on a series of adventures that cause him to revert to being wild, so when he finally makes his way back to camp, starts to become destructive, and possibly dangerous, though one man in particular(played by Ron Brown) is determined to save his life, and protect his future(along with a nice lady cougar he met along the way...) Entertaining film is fun for the whole family, and cat lovers in particular.