Starring: Celia Kaye, Larry Domasin, Ann Daniel, George Kennedy, Carlos Romero and Junior as “Rontu”

As Summer winds its days down, join The Deuce for a desert-island idyll as we journey to the Pacific Paradise of ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS! But… beware!! Because this Paradise comes with a perilous price to pay… and dolphins!!!

A true(ish) tale from the 1835 Southern California Channel Islands of firebrand(ish) Chumash Tribe teen Karana’s travails and triumphs… after her Tribe is tricked and turned on by bigoty blubbery otter trappers (jerks!) and – for other reasons to be revealed – the winsome, lithesome lass is left alone(ish) to fend for herself on her lonesome(ish) island home… to win some and lose some… all the time tasked to teach herself the toilsome skills of survival traditionally left to the “men-folk” and formerly forbidden to female doing… Net-fishin’! Fightin’ feral dogs! Featherin’ arrows! Bow-huntin!! All the while talkin’, walkin’, and sometimes swimin’ with all manner of Nature’s natural kingdom… Too cute!!

Based on Scott O’Dell’s much-loved Newbery Medal for children’s literature award-winning novel – book and film both becoming touchstones of proto-girl-power feminism (especially for “us” “Gen-Xers” – you know who you are! Or maybe you don’t –  considering that ever-creeping senility thing…), director James B. Clark could hardly have been more in his métier, coming off his previous year’s top-dolphin flick Flipper  – having already helmed the classic “boy-and-his-dog” cry-fest A Dog Of Flanders, and soon to spin another titan tale of a child’s communion with Nature My Side Of The Mountain (don’t think we ain’t thinkin’ of doin’ that one someday, Deuceies!), as well as – omg! – the Eastern Shore set Chincoteague wild ponies romp Misty!! Too cute!!

Playing our winsome, lithesome lass, Celia Kaye – who would as the later (liltingly weddedly named) Celia Milius appear in two of hubby John’s films: Big Wednesday (“Bride of Bear”) and Conan The Barbarian (“High Priestess” – uncredited – give the lady lady some credit, John!) – garnered for her Crusoe-ish performance the 1965 Golden Globe Award for “Most Promising Newcomer,” while her co-star (the son of Disney’s Old Yeller titular dog-star AND Clark’s aforementioned A Dog Of Flanders!) Junior (“as Rontu”) – himself garnering a PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star Of The Year) Award from the American Humane Association… the award-winning duo also having become constant companions on and off screen! Too cute!!

While eschewing some of the book’s more narrativities, Clark and ace cinematographer Leo Tover (of, among other acmes, Shoedsack’s The Monkey’s Paw, Walsh’s The Tall Men, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, and again with Clark on – omg – Misty!!) craft a film to be felt more than followed… At once languid in its beachy islandy revery and – with a breathlessness physical and emotional – focusing as much on the overwhelming beauty of its vistas and world of Nature as on its heroine’s strength – not just for survival – but in her capacity for compassion, empathy, and kindness in the face of a world as adversarial as it is Edenic… Perhaps a bit too tender for the Times Square-tugger crowd… instead film-fan families flocked to the rarified air of Upper East’s RKO 86th Street Theatre to take in this tale of feminine fortitude, and for which The Deuce-dopes strongly encourage the bringing of your own or otherwise borrowed from friends children and/or dogs and/or birds and/or dolphins for this rare(ish) Deuce foray into family-entertainment territory… Too cute!!