Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar

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.)

It isn't billed as one of his true-life series, but it could be. It ranks with Bear Country and Living Desert, two of his True Life Adventure episodes. Charlie is the name loggers of the Northwest give to a cougar who has the habit of visiting their camp at mealtime. Soon, he's as tame as Disney's imagination can make all wild animals. He does revert a couple of times to the wild instinct in him, but nothing too violent for children of all ages. It could be used in the schoolroom, if there weren't so many other good media choices already.

A lumberman finds a young cougar in need of help. To young to be on his own the cat soon takes up with the rugged camp workers. Nicknamed "Good Time Charlie' his antics amuse everyone at first. His wild nature eventually begins to cause trouble and reintroducing him into his natural habitat becomes an issue. This film is among those wonderful Disney nature films that were common in the 50's and 60's Lots of action, beautiful scenery and some endearing animal to charm you. These films were not long but included fascinating glimpses into wildlife and the effects of human contact. Unlike Disney's animated talking animals the animals in these films remained true to their own nature. They also make great travel films for seeing the western states.

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.

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.