Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion

Excellent family-oriented animal adventure film with plenty of human interaction and comedy. Marshall Thompson is Doctor "Daktari" Marsh Tracy, head of an animal study compound in Africa. Widowed, he takes care of his teenage daughter Paula played by cute and perky Cheryl Miller. Sort of an American Hayley Mills, Paula Tracy is a bit of tom-boy (she has a python for a pet) but is growing up into a woman (she tapes her stockings to her thighs with masking tape to hold them up). Betsy Drake (the former Mrs. Cary Grant) is Julie Harper, a sort of Jane Goodhall type character who studies apes in their natural habitat and is the romantic interest for Dr. Tracy. The great character actor who made a career of rolling his r's, Richard Haydn ("Five Days in a Balloon"), is excellent as the comic relief Rupert Rowbotham, Paula's tutor, who is afraid of all the animals (especially Mary Lou the python and Clarence, the lion who tend to snuggle up to him). Add some wrestling with wild cheetahs, a few dangerous gorilla poachers, the antics of Doris the chimpanzee, and of course Clarence, the cross-eyed lion and what you have is the most consistently entertaining of the African animal adventure films which include John Wayne's "Hatari" and Hugh O'Brien's "Africa--Texas Style!. Ivan Tors ("Flipper," "Sea Hunt," "Gentle Ben," "Zebra in the Kitchen") produced this film which later became the TV series "Daktari."

In Africa, veterinarian Marshall Thompson (as Marsh Tracy) and teenage daughter Cheryl Miller (as Paula Tracy) adopt a cross-eyed lion who is unable to hunt well due to impaired visual perception. With help from a book, Ms. Miller names him "Clarence" (the Cross-Eyed Lion). Some of the local natives are afraid of Clarence, as is Miller's British tutor Richard Haydn (as Rupert Rowbotham), but Clarence remains as gentle as a lamb. He has double vision. While studying Gorillas, Mr. Thompson's girlfriend Betsy Drake (as Julie Harper) gets in trouble with nasty native poachers...

Several involved with this feature were also featured behind, and in front of, the cameras on the "Flipper" (the dolphin) TV series. "Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion" doesn't hold much appeal or excitement as a film, today. However, the combination of setting and the fact it would be broadcast IN COLOR made it an easy sell as TV's "Daktari". At the time, colorful locations brought in viewers and sold color TV sets. Clarence and the series' other animals had an appeal, and the lion became a distinctly lovable character. Spunky young Miller was augmented by handsome young Yale Summers.

**** Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion (4/14/65) Andrew Marton ~ Marshall Thompson, Cheryl Miller, Betsy Drake, Richard Haydn

This was a movie from Ivan Tors Productions, the same company that brought the world family entertainment (often centered around animals) like "Flipper". Unlike "Flipper", "Clarence, The Cross-Eyed Lion" has more or less been forgotten, and it's easy to see why. It's a pretty cheap-looking movie, for one thing - it's obvious that the bulk of the movie was not shot in Africa and was instead filmed in southern California. There is some African footage, but it's painfully obvious that it's stock footage originally shot for some other production. It's also a very dull movie, and I can imagine children will be squirming in their seats. The oddest thing about the entire enterprise is that despite the title, Clarence the lion is almost an afterthought - much of the movie does not focus on him, but on the human characters in an endless series of vignettes that have little to no relation to each other. Even those who are cross-eyed will see that this project was misguided from the start.

A family of great white hunters living in Africa have their village visited by the titular cross-eyed lion and wacky animal Disney hijinks ensue. It's nothing you haven't already seen dozens of times before, but as usual, Disney pretty consistently makes enjoyable entertainment that's hard to resist. This film was so popular at the time that it spun off into it's own TV series.

I laughed at some of the corny setups and jokes and loved the animals. However, this movie made me rethink what passed for family movies back in the 60's (I was a kid then but I'd never seen this movie before today--I wasn't really into animals at 12 years old.) There were some very adult behavior that would never make it into a family film today--all the alcohol drinking and a few Hell's & Damn's thrown in not to mention the raid by troops on poachers. But if you don't have anything else to do and this movie is on, it's not a total waste of time. Betsy Drake is really pretty good in it and Richard Haydn made me laugh some. I've seen Marshall Thompson in better movies but maybe the reason he never was a huge star was because he really wasn't a good actor. I was glad they kept Cheryl Miller's scenes to a minimum.