Fluffy

...which is because it is a complete farce from start to finish. In spite of the fact that the script includes a lion roaming about free in a hotel, a bit of a mad - okay more like eccentric - scientist, the alleged devouring of an older gentleman, a jailbreak, and a combined vigilante/ police man and lion hunt, there is zero stress in the entire film.

Parts of it are pure 60's "hey the production code is gone, let's go wild!" (wild for 1965, that is) stuff that really is pretty tame today as far as sexual content is concerned, including a honeymooning couple that winds up with everyone in the hotel sleeping in their room. This is the last straw for the bride who, as she leaves her new husband says "If mom and dad had started out this way I wouldn't even have been born!" There is a host of talented character actors in the background, such as Edward Andrews as the hotel proprietor, Howard Morris as a guest who thinks that the lion's roar he hears is from neglecting his cat - he even is the first to see the lion, but everyone just assumes it is drunken delusions. Then there is Jim Backus as a rather incompetent police sergeant.

The basic storyline is that Dr. Daniel Potter (Tony Randall) as a researcher at the Braden institute is running from the police who want to impound "Fluffy", a lion who Potter has trained to be as tame as a housecat. In fact, most of the trouble is caused by Potter referring to Fluffy as "his cat". He checks into a residence hotel that is completely booked, but the jet setting Janice Claridge (Shirley Jones) is going to be gone for the night and gives Potter and "his cat" her room. From there the misunderstandings and mayhem begin.

Recommended if you just want to laugh and need zero stress and conflict in your cinema entertainment for once.

Tony Randall plays a professor of comparative psychology who is chased out of his animal lab by the cops, who are responding to complaints by the neighbors that he's harboring a wild beast. It's only Fluffy, a tame and very sleepy lion, who checks in with Randall at an apartment-hotel under the nose of manager Edward Andrews (Randall orders 35 hamburgers and a vat of Pablum from room service, sending the Asian staff into a tizzy). A brunette Shirley Jones plays the begrudging love-interest, who initially believes police reports that Randall is psychotic (he's so incredibly guileless about how other people feel about an uncaged lion walking around that the cops may have a point). Gitchy-goo comedy for family audiences; utterly underwhelming and unrewarding. Jim Backus is wasted as a desk sergeant; Adam Roarke (later of the juvenile delinquent wheelers of the late-'60s) has a clean-cut role here as a newlywed. *1/2 from ****

1965 studios clearly didn't have a clue, evidenced by this Universal release. Do we call the key stone cops farcical? This might be charming for nostalgia seekers but not me. On release I was in Jr high and knew this was witless and just stupily loud. 50 years later...I like animals, there is some charm...but all these characters are too stupid. Keep the FF nearby.

This movie was always a guilty pleasure for me. Whenever I saw it would be on, I finagled a way to be able to watch. Being a cat-lover, I loved the lion. Even now, I find myself smiling, just thinking about the film.

The cast was perfect in their over-reactions and bluster when confronted by the lion and Tony Randall's insistence that Fluffy would hurt no one. It's classic comedy for its time, and the humor still works, all these years later.

I highly recommend this film for harmless fun that's enjoyable for adults and children.

One of my favorite movies of all time I know if is a little corny but who doesn't love a little core every once in a while as a kid things are supposed to be corny as an adult it is fun to remember childhood joys. If you have never seen this movie take the time to watch it especially if you have kids let them watch it with you and then watch them. If they love it as much as I did you are in for a treat. Old movies can be so fun and enjoyable. You also can avoid the as my mother would say the garbage that you find in a lot of the movies today if you are looking for a good whole some movie this is one to watch. I only wish I knew where to find it now.