THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 14, 1996 TAG: 9605140034
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
GURGLE! GURGLE!
That, in case, you didn't recognize it, is the sound (or the rough approximation) of an American hero returning.
Yes, ``Flipper'' is back, ready to do a few leaps and underwater dashes for new big-screen fans as well as the faithful baby boomer crowd who made him an all-wet icon for more than three decades. Universal, perhaps looking longingly at the surprise box-office strength of a whale named Willy, is betting heavily that Flipper has star power.
But look closely and the Dolphins you see are actually Jake, Fat Man and McGuyver - the three specialists who have replaced Suzy, the original from the 1960s TV series. Suzy may have gone to Neptune's Locker, but it took three dolphins to replace her.
From 1964 to 1968, ``Flip per,'' as a 30-minute TV show, wowed the younger set, with Brian Kelly as Dad, the chief ranger of Coral Key Park, Fla., and his two sons, Sandy and Bud (Luke Halpin and Tommy Norden), the boys for whom Flipper flipped. It's been in reruns ever since.
The new $10 million big-screen flick has former ``Crocodile Dundee'' Paul Hogan and blue-eyed teen cover-boy Elijah Wood billed above the title, but there's no question about who the star really is.
``Hey, no one is going to come to see ME,'' the weathered Hogan said when he attended the premiere in Florida a week ago. ``It's a case of being put in your place.''
Behind the scenes on the set of ``Flipper,'' near Nassau in the Bahamas, was a hectic place. There was 95-degree heat, there was a hurricane watch (which turned out to be a false alarm) and there was a good deal of waiting.
``When they're ready, you better be ready,'' Hogan said, in describing his three underwater co-stars. ``Otherwise, you wait.''
The somewhat irreverent Hogan remembers that his beloved doggie Paddy was barred from the set because he irritated the stars. ``Paddy is a great swimmer,'' Hogan said. ``It was his swimming more than his barking that was the problem.''
Hogan doesn't need the money. ``Crocodile Dundee'' and its sequel grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide, and he was a major shareholder as well as the star. He read the script for ``Flipper'' when it was offered to his wife, actress Linda Kozlowski, who was his ``Crocodile'' co-star. She was up for the role of an oceanographer (now played by Chelsea Field) but didn't feel it was right for her.
In reading the script, Hogan was attracted to the part of Porter, an ex-hippie who is a fisherman. He was also attracted because the film would be shot in the Bahamas.
But looking back, he says, ``even paradise can get boring after three weeks or so.''
Pondering the continuing attraction of the ``Flipper'' films, Hogan said: ``Well, ya' know, mate, it's actually Lassie in the water, isn't it? There's an unending appeal, it seems, to a boy and his dog. Of course, a boy and his dolphin are the same thing. It's a kind of rite of passage - the last friendship of boyhood, because he has to go out and become a man. That type thing.''
Hogan isn't surprised that he was not signed for a potential ``Flipper'' sequel. ``I'm not sure they need me,'' he said.
Wood, the frequent cover boy for Tiger Beat and other teen magazines, got the role of Sandy, a city boy who is a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan until he finds a dolphin friend.
Thinking that an unknown would be preferable, the producers saw several hundred applicants before they decided to go with the star of such films as ``Radio Flyer,'' ``The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,'' ``The Good Son'' (opposite Macaulay Culkin) and ``The War'' (with Kevin Costner).
For the first time, Wood has a girlfriend in the movie. ``But it's about Flipper,'' he emphasizes. ``I had to undergo training for underwater swimming and to get friendly with the three dolphins. It was like two jobs - trainer and actor.''
He began by cultivating a personal relationship with the dolphins - feeding and caring for them every day.
``They're so outgoing and so trusting that it was easy to make friends with them,'' he said, ``but getting them to do things on cue is another thing. Their regular trainers took care of all that, but I'd sit by the trainers most of the time. There were scenes when they had to look at me. That's not easy to get right.''
His favorite was Jake. ``Jake is what Flipper should be,'' Wood said. ``He was like a sloppy puppy. He loved to be around people. Both Jake and Fat Man did high jumps. McGuyver was the pretty boy, handsome one of the group. He wasn't as friendly, but he got all the close-ups.''
A state-of-the-art animatronic dolphin was in the water to register expressions and to handle most of the climactic battle between Flipper and a shark. Producer Perry Katz said: ``We wanted to use the animatronic Flipper as seldom as possible, but at the same time, we didn't want to put any of the dolphins in danger. We knew the limits of what Jake, Fat Man and McGuyver could do.''
The set, ironically, was just 100 yards from the dock where most of the original ``Flipper'' TV series was shot. The moviemakers had to move the set for Hogan's beach house after local authorities informed them that it had been built atop a rare plant, one of only three in existence. Palm trees were moved from miles away to make the cottage look native.
Luke Halpin, who played Sandy in the TV series from 1964 to 1968 as well as in the original 1963 movie, portrays one of the villains in the new movie.
``It was great to talk with him,'' Wood said, ``because, after all, he had the luxury of working with his dolphin for years. I had just two weeks before filming.''
Wood said he felt that he had ``made it'' when he achieved his first ``push up'' (when Jake pushed him through the water fast enough that he could stand up as if he were water skiing).
``I knew, after that, that Jake trusted me,'' the actor said.
``Flipper,'' though, is not a case of a small star getting in a big pond but of a major star returning. Producer Katz hastens to point out that Flipper started out as a big-screen movie before there was a TV series. (Chuck Connors starred as a fisherman whose son befriended the injured dolphin and released him to the wild.)
There were two other Flipper movies. In ``Flipper's New Adventure,'' in 1963, Flipper and Sandy travel to a remote island where a British family is being held prisoner. Then there was ``Flipper's Odyssey'' in 1966, in which Flipper rescues a boy trapped in a cave. Halpin was in all the movies.
Wood says that his three co-stars are still in captivity but are happy and well cared for. ``It was difficult leaving them, and I certainly didn't think, at first, that it would be,'' he said. ``They become friends very fast. I'm back in California with my two bearded collies, Rascal and Levi, but I'm hoping to visit them, especially Jake. It would be really sad for me to visit and he doesn't remember me. I hope that doesn't happen.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Universal
Elijah Wood cavorts with his co-star in "Flipper"
by CNB