Flipper (MGM) (1963)

LUKE MAKES HIS MOVIE DEBUT IN ROLE WITH A DOLPHIN EVERY BOY WILL ENVY After appearing in every major dramatic show on _ television, twelve-year-old Luke Halpin gets “introduced” once again—this time to screen audiences in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s unusual motion picture, “Flipper,’”’ story of the extraordinary friendship between a boy and a dolphin. A native of Astoria, Long Island, Luke first became a “‘professional”’ eight years ago when the director of a school in which he was studying music recommended him to CBS casting director, James Merrick. The latter was searching for a tot to appear with Natalie Wood in the Studio One production, “Miracle at Potter’s Farm.” Young Luke displayed such natural talent in his acting debut that it was decided he should have special billing with a frame reading ... “Introducing Luke Halpin.” Today, the credits on ‘Flipper,”’ starring Chuck Connors, also read “and introducing Luke Halpin.’ This time, Luke makes his bow to motion picture audiences in a role every boy will envy. He plays the son of a Florida Keys fisherman who rescues an injured dolphin with which he establishes an extraordinary comradeship. Not only does he teach the dolphin to retrieve rubber balls, swim-fins and other objects, but the dolphin eventually permits him to ride on its bacx! The sequences in which Luke and IVAN TORS LONG DREAM-COME-TRUE “Flipper, unique Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture telling the story of the friendship between a boy and a dolphin, is the dream-come-true of Producer Ivan Tors, who created the TV show “Sea Hunt” and other motion picture and television productions with seagoing backgrounds. The star of “Flipper” is a young, 300-pound, seven-foot-long female, Mitzi. Mitzi is not an oceanarium dolphin. It had been exposed to people as the pet of a Mr. Santini of Key Marathon, Florida. Santini, a dolphin collector for oceanariums, kept his unusual pet in a netted-off lagoon where it lives in considerable freedom. “Mitzi took to the motion picture camera as quickly as it did to human companionship,” Tors said. “No matter what it was required to do, Mitzi did it in no more than two takes.” Chuck Connors, Luke Halpin and Kathleen Maguire are the human stars of the picture. ” Flipper romp and chase each other in the water, play games and even fish together have to be seen to be believed. Although he is new to motion pictures, Luke has a number of stage engagements to his credit in addition to his distinguished record on television. He appeared with Mary Martin in the West Coast engagements of “Annie Get Your Gun” and on Broadway in “Sunrise at Campobello,” subsequently traveling with the national touring company of the play. Luke’s success as an actor has failed to cause even a ripple in the life of the Halpin family. With his mother and father, he still lives in the same Astoria apartment, among the same neighbors! he knew before becoming a celebrity. Since baseball is Luke’s favorite sport, he looked upon “Flipper” star Chuck Connors as a hero. The latter, a former big league baseball player before becoming an actor, batted .321 and smashed 23 home runs to become one of the major stars of the Pacific Coast League. Twelve-year-old Luke Halpin makes his screen debut with Chuck Connors in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s fascinating film, 9° ““Flipper,”’ telling the story of the son of a Florida Keys fisherman who has an affinity for all wild creatures. Here heis shown holding his pet pelican, but more remarkable is his friendship with the delightfuldolphin that plays the picture’s title role. An Ivan Tors production, “Flipper” was filmed in color in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. Still 5305-6 Flipper Mat tA MEET "FLIPPER’— HOLLYWOOD'S MOST CAPTIVATING NEW STAR! Hollywood’s newest star weighs 300 pounds, has intriguing silvergrey eyes, a Mona Lisa smile—and swims. It’s Flipper, the dashing dolphin who stars in the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, “Flipper,” and who has done such a sensational job in the personality department that all who worked with ‘Flip” are planning to enlarge their backyard pools, add a little salt, and adopt a dolphin as a pet. Actually, Flipper is a finny Lassie in reverse. Where Lassie in reality is a Laddie, Flipper is really a Mitzie. Like all baby dolphins, Mitzi was born underwater and pushed to the surface by her mother for her first breath of air. The first eighteen months of her life were spent swimming at her mother’s side—then she became a “school” girl. It was shortly after this that a net changed her life. She was captured by Victor Santini, whose business is selling dolphins to scientific institutes and salt water aquariums. The engaging and friendly personality of this youthful dolphin registered with the Santinis and she became the aquatic member of the family, with a large seapool all her own adjacent to their home in Marathon, Florida. But like all good members of a family, Mitzi was required to do her bit in the responsibility department. When the Santinis brought back a new catch of wild dolphins, Mitzi took on the role of both trainer and tamer. She would encourage the others to start feeding sooner by setting an example. In some cases she would take the fish to more reluctant members of the group. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Ivan Tors and associate producer and author Ricou Fight With Shark One of “Flipper” Thrill Scenes There are plenty of thrills in store for those who see MetroGoldwyn-Mayer’s unique and fascinating new picture ‘Flipper,’ telling the story of the remarkable friendship between a boy and an almost human dolphin. The story was filmed in color in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands with many of the sequences photographed below the surface of the ocean, giving the spectator close-ups of the mysterious finned world beneath the seas, including a scene showing a battle to the death between Flipper, the dolphin, and a shark which has attacked its human pal. There is also a sequence showing the devastation caused by a Florida hurricane. Browning called at the Santini home one afternoon, Mitzi had no way of knowing that she was on the verge of screen stardom. For weeks the two men had _ been searching the Florida Keys and the Bahamas for the right dolphin to portray Flipper. Clad in swim trunks and face plates, Tors and Browning entered the sea-pool. Flipper chattered a welcome and invited them to swim alongside. Then she showed off by retrieving balls and sticks. The Search was over. Mitzi had the job! It was Browning, a champion swimmer and producer of spectacular underwater shows at Weeki Wachee and _ Rainbow Springs, who was appointed Mitzi’s mentor for stardom. Since she had to work with a small boy in the film, Browning enlisted the help of his ten-year-old son, Ricky. Ricky fed Mitzi twice a day and swam with her morning and afternoon. The script of. “Flipper” called for the dolphin star to tow a drowning boy alongside his father’s boat. Mitzi loved to play with Ricky, but it was difficult to figure out just how to teach her to tow him to a given point. So they experimented. Browning tossed Ricky into the pool, indicating to Mitzi that she was to retrieve him. She tried every way to bring him back but seemed wary of hurting him by biting hand or foot to do it. Browning then called to Ricky to hang onto Mitzi’s dorsal fin. She immediately towed the boy to the feeding platform, where Browning waited with her reward—a Butter Fish. From then on, she would pull Ricky all the way around or across the large sea-pool on command. When actual filming began in Nassau, Mitzi took her stardom in stride. She developed a violent schoolgirl crush on cameraman Lamar Borin and when shooting started underwater, would swim around him, nudge him and was visibly reluctant to take her place in front of the camera, much prefering to remain at his side. In summing up his work with Mitzi, Browning said: “T believe we only scratched the surface as to what friendship and understanding can be attained with a dolphin. For example, when we were using the Aqua Lung under water, I took out my mouthpiece and let air flow freely from the end. Mitzi was not to be outdone. She came down and started letting air out from the blow-hole in her head until I thought she was going to drown!” Following her movie star-stint with popular leading man Chuck Connors and young Luke Halpin, Mitzi returned to her home in Marathon, where she continues her work as a wild dolphin trainer. Flipper, the friendly dolphin, introduces Luke Halpin to his home beneath the sea in one of the remarkable underwater scenes of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s fascinating film, ‘“‘Flipper.’’ Chuck Connors heads the cast of the unusual color picture, telling the story of the extraordinary friendship between a boy and a dolphin. The Ivan Tors production was filmed on locations in the Florida Keys, Bahamas and Virgin Islands. Still 5305-42 Flipper Mat 2-D "| LOVE THOSE DOLPHINS BECAUSE...” by IVAN TORS (producer of ‘Flipper,’ Metro Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture depicting the remarkable friendship between a boy and a dolphin) Our new generation of Astronauts are about to visit strange planets hoping that one day they may encounter civilizations more advanced than ours. I feel I have already encountered them—not in outer space but in “inner space,” aS many of us like to call the watery surface of our third planet from the sun. I have known dolphins for a long time. Aristotle wrote about them kindly and described them accurately. I have watched them many times in the oceanariums such as Marineland of the Pacific, Seaquarium in Miami, and the Marine Studios near St. Augustine. I found them amazing and amusing creatures, playing basketball, baseball, jumping through hoops, pulling boats with little dogs on them, and acting like so many well mannered clowns. I observed them in the ocean riding the bow waves of fast crafts effortlessly, giving a lesson’ to humans in body surfing. I had always been aware that dolphins were intelligent, seagoing mammals, but I had seen intelligent dogs, educated monkeys, elephants, horses and trained pigs. I once even owned an intelligent raven with a fetching personality. However, I never felt that, mentally or emotionally, these welltrained animals were my equals. The intelligence of the dolphin never really surprised me. I knew that it once had been a land mammal and was equipped with a large brain. The size of the dolphin’s brain surpasses the human size. A two-hundred pound dolphin has twice the brain size of the largest gorilla. As I had more and more personal encounters with doiphins I came to the realization that this creature was more civilized and gentle than the human species. Can I prove it? I think I can. The Atlantic Bottle Nosed dolphins have 84 sharp teeth which could crunch your fingers the same as they crunch the backbon?2 of the fish they swallow. When I fed them, they jumped out of the water to take the fish out of my hands. But no matter how hungry they were, how competitive they were among themselves, how close I pushed the fish into their gullets, none of them ever nicked me—not even by accident. It was as though they understood and were anxious to keep their sharp teeth away from the feeding hand. One dolphin, named Clown, at the Miami Seaquarium, likes to jump out of the water to pull my hair. It teases me by taking a Meet the screen’s most delightful new star—Flipper, the almost human dolphin playing the title role in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s fascinating film, 99 “Flipper,” telling the story of the remarkable friendship between a young boy and a dolphin. Luke Halpin plays the boy, with Chuck Connors as his Florida Keys fisherman father. Flipper, seven-footlong and weighing 300 pounds, is the most friendly, and captivating sea-going playmate any youngster ever dreamed of. Still 5305-39 Flipper Mat 1-D shock of my hair in its mouth and giving it a tug. But it does this so gently that the little tug never hurts. Dolphins are the most powerful creatures in nature for their body size. The energy output for a full grown dolphin is 2.6 horsepower. They flash through the ocean like torpedoes. Yet they use _ their amazing prowess exclusively to catch small fish or to help each other if in danger. A dolphin is an air-breathing animal with a blow-hole for a nose. It has to surface every three or four minutes to draw a breath or else it would drown. When any dolphins are incapacitated by sickness or injury, others will come to the rescue. Usually, one dolphin on each side will get under the sick dolphin and push it to the surface. This may go on day in and day out until the sick dolphin recovers or perishes. This samaritan behavior pattern is probably responsible for the tales of dolphins pushing drowning people to shore and saving the lives of shipwrecked sailors. Some of these tales are well authenticated.