This would have been better titled "87 Minutes of Tedium, Interspersed With Some Underwater Footage That Was Probably Cool In 1963." This film bears only a marginal relationship to the TV series -- basically just the names Porter Ricks, Sandy, Flipper, and Coral Key.

The movie opens with shots of several sea creatures while Porter provides a voice-over about all he's learned about the denizens of the deep. Curiously, though the movie is set in Florida, these creatures include humpback whales and elephant seals, neither of which are found anywhere near there.

We learn that Porter Ricks is an independent commercial fisherman (the first of the differences between the movie and TV series) whose son Sandy helps out during the summer vacation (second difference: no Bud). They're having problems because a red tide has killed all the fish.

Then a Coast Guard helicopter shows up to warn them that a hurricane is coming, so they head back to town. Sandy runs off to get his mother and bring her to the shelter at the post office, while his dad puts the boat somewhere safe. The hurricane hits and is one of the fakest storms in the history of moviedom. Then we're introduced to a tourist girl whose father is on his way down. (How this ten-year old girl got there by herself and who is taking care of her is never made clear.)

After a bunch of things that have no connection to the plot (such as it is), the girl's father shows up, and Sandy gets to go diving with them. We are also introduced to her cousin Phil. "Aha," you may think to yourself. "Here's the bad guy, the obnoxious older cousin." Wrong. Phil's sole purpose is to shoot Flipper in the tail with a spear gun, after which he bonks his head on a convenient piece of coral and has to be rescued by Sandy. At one point we can see that Phil is clinging to the bottom so that he doesn't drift away.

Once Phil is taken care of, Sandy goes back to where the dolphin was shot in order to put it out of its misery. But he just can't do it (good thing, since he was in a small boat trying to hit a target from about 200 yards with a shotgun), so he wraps the dolphin in a net and takes him home, keeping him in the fish corral where his father keeps the catch fresh.

Some plot details happen. Sandy puts on a show in which Flipper does several tricks, all of which consist of him fetching objects. This goes on way too long, and we are subjected to the first ever rendition of the "Flipper" theme song, sung by a group of off-key (or at least not all in the same key) children.

Porter comes home from buying new parts for his boat and isn't too happy about the dolphin. We hear all about how dolphins and fishermen are enemies competing for the same resources, and Sandy is forced to let Flipper go. There still aren't any fish to be caught, but with Flipper's help Sandy finds a large school. Unfortunately Flipper gets into the fish corral and eats the whole catch. Porter gets mad, and Sandy has to make up the catch himself. Somewhere in all this Porter makes two speeches that show what a swell guy he his. He tells his wife that he knows she hates being stuck in the middle of nowhere, but he loves it there, so tough luck. (Fortunately for him, she loves it there too.) Then he admits that he loves his son, but of course he can't tell him that because "men don't talk about that sort of thing."

Flipper leads Sandy to another big school, and he tells his father. So his father plans to go out the next morning and shoot any dolphin that gets between him and his catch. Sandy sneaks off during the night to warn his friend. At some point he winds up out of the boat and "threatened" by sharks. Mind you, these are just harmless dogfish, a bit smaller than Sandy himself, but Flipper beats them to death, filling the water with blood and greatly increasing the risk to Sandy. But, hey! It wouldn't be Flipper if he didn't beat up a shark.

In the end, Flipper takes Sandy to his father's boat, and Sandy declares that there are millions of fish out there, enough for everybody, and the movie comes to an abrupt end.

This is one to miss. There's less plot than in a half-hour episode of the TV show, and even the underwater scenes are just plain boring.

Rating: 2 turkeys.

Best line: "Eheheheheheheheh."