Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion

This is a good family film!

I only want to say that the previous reviewer is not correct. This is fabulous, entertaining and well-done family film. I highly recommend it! Just seeing the real Africa and not a Hollywood set is reason enough to see this film. Also, please note that this film was made into a good TV series: "Daktari". Yes, Richard Hayden is the best thing in the movie! What a great comedic actor!

Perhap some might not like the movie because it is simple, straight-forward and charming. It is a kids movie that adults will like too!

I saw this in the theater when I was a child and watched the TV show too.

One of my favorite shows as a kid.

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

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 admit this movie was not a fantastic watch, but it was mildly amusing for the time and era of the movie. If you are going to critique I think you should carry on a subjective opinion based on not just whether the acting/directing/writing, etc. was good or not but consider what they had to work with at the time. To say that the movie was awful because they made it seem like you could tame a lion with chocolate cake is ridiculous. Lots of movies do not display things that we necessarily agree with, but it does not make them bad movies. I don't agree with cannibalism, but Silence of the Lambs was good, yet I don't see you protesting the implications that the bad guy was killing people to eat. I thought Clarence was a cute movie. No, it wasn't a greatly acted or directed one, but it was cute. One more tiny little suggestion, don't use movies to tell you how to live your life.

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."