Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar (1967)

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Here we go again: another animal-centric Disney fictional film that might as well be a documentary! Well, this one’s gotta be better since it’s about cougars and I actually like wild cats, right? Right? Sigh…let’s take a look at Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar!

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Directed by veteran Disney writer and narrator, Winston Hibler, the film takes place in Northwestern America and is narrated by another veteran Disney narrator, Rex Allen.

A forester named Jess Bradley, played by Ron Brown, comes upon a cougar cub in the forests whose mother has died. He takes it upon himself to “adopt” the cougar (aka mountain lion aka puma aka panther aka catamount) and raises it as his pet. He names it Charlie and does his best to feeds him milk and bring him along on fishing trips and the like.

As time goes by, Charlie is still a cub, but grows bigger and bigger every day. His size as well as his innate curiosity (cat killer, much?) gets him into trouble quite a bit. Well, it’s fairer to say that it gets Jess in trouble quite a bit.

One day, Charlie knocks over a cook from a floating kitchen that’s currently heading downstream to a team of loggers. Charlie gets stranded on a log heading downstream, so Jess goes after him by jumping on the floating kitchen and trying like heck to steer that thing. Eventually he catches up with Charlie and the nearby loggers reach Jess and help him pilot the floating kitchen to their base.

Seeing as they’re out a cook, the chief logger pretty much forces Jess to be their cook and stay on with them for their assignment downriver. Their main job is to dislodge logs that get stuck in the river and allow them to flow downriver until they reach the logging camp. While Jess is busy cooking for these hardworking men, Charlie spends a lot of time with the men and in essence, become their mascot.

That’s not to say that Charlie doesn’t get into trouble anymore. Nope, one day he accidentally sets fire to the floating kitchen wherein Jess is sleeping unaware that he’s floating downriver in a blazing tent and about to collide with a tangle of logs that is about to be blown up!

Long story short, disaster is averted, but Charlie is now put on a leash and kept in a cage to prevent any further trouble. One night though he manages to break out and meets a female cougar for the first time.

He follows her into the forest as he’s madly in love with her. However she rejects his advances putting this teenage love story to bed rather quickly. Charlie tries to find his way back home, but is lost. This is kinda where the “lonesome” part of the title comes from event though we only have like 1/3 of the film to go.

As he searches for home, he comes across multiple animals and characters, even giving a surprise to an unexpectant farmer milking his cow.

After some time, Charlie rides a log down a log flume which takes him back to the logging camp. By now though, he’s grown and wilder than he was before, causing havoc when the men see him. Fleeing from them, he gets stuck in an underground lift and is about to be shot, but Jess arrives just in time.

Charlie recognizes Jess and Charlie is saved. Jess is about to get married, so he has to make sure that Charlie is taken care of. He takes Charlie to a protected area of the forest where he can live freely in the wild. The two bid farewell and Charlie soon finds another female cougar whom he falls in love with. Whether this is the same cougar he had a crush on when he was younger is uncertain, but the two are happy together!

And that was Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar! Again, the title of the film is misleading as Charlie is only lonesome for about 1/3 of the film, at best! That’s like calling The Cat in the Hat, “Thing One and Thing Two Make Mischief“! Like, yes they do, but there’s more to it than that!

All the actors’ line deliveries are hilariously laughable, especially their “Oh no’s!”! It literally feels that these are not actors, but just random people who were on set that day. Ron Brown is the only one who seems like he’s an actor trying, but the others just seem like random people. I mean, just look at how boring their names are: Ron Brown, Brian Russell, Linda Wallace, Jim Wilson, Clifford Peterson, etc. No offense to them or their names, but if they were real actors, I feel they would have had more Hollywood-y names.

The cougars are the best thing in the film, of course. Apparently four different cougars were used in the film and I enjoyed seeing them since I enjoy big cats (even though I know they’re not technically considered “big cats”). Rex Allen also does a good job with the narration.

Besides that, I don’t really have anything else good to say. This is pretty much what I expected of this film.

So, my final score for this film is 20/35 = 57.14% (F) !

The next review will be posted on September 19, 2023.