Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

Excellent film. I don't know how they contained a cougar, domesticated or not, as he ran through a town, a lumberyard, etc. How did a cougar run around in the open forest without just taking off? I wouldn't trust my cats or dogs to do this. Must have been a very well-trained cougar. I never knew that log flumes stretched for over ten miles! How did they get the cougar to ride a log? It was obviously happening, since there was no computer generated imagery back then. The part where he chased a raccoon up a tree and they both fell in the river....I don't know if that borders on animal cruelty - what did they do - release a raccoon and let the cougar chase it? How many raccoons did they go through until they got it right?? I actually watched this movie on the big screen TV with my two cats in the room. They were riveted - I think it's their favorite movie. My black cat, Shaft, jumped up on the table in front of the screen and stayed there - watching Charlie's every move. Too funny!

This is one of those movies you just watch for the pictures. There isn't much of a story and there isn't much acting, aside from the animals, but the scenery is great and it's amazing they can train animals like that.It's worth watching just to see actual footage of one of the last log drives on the Clearwater river. Not long after the movie was made, the Clearwater was dammed up, and that whole beautiful valley was killed by the muck and slack-water behind Dworshak dam. If they tried to make a movie like this these days, they'd have to do it with CGI, because you just can't pile up 600,000 feet of old-growth logs and dump them in a river any more, even if you could find one that wasn't dammed up. The animal rights people would probably have something to say about having a cougar jump into a pen full of sheep and run over top of a bunch of piglets, too. There are some hokey parts of the production such as the "moonlight" cougar romp under a bright sunny sky, and the dynamiting of a small pile of driftwood that is supposed to be a "log jam" (after lighting the "wick", no less), but in the genre of "animal pictures" this is one of the best.

This film has not been seen by me in quite a few years. It came on the Disney Channel in the wee hours of the morning. I stayed up to watch it, and found it even more entertaining than the first time. The story, the scenery and the characters are as good as they come. I know that if anyone takes the time to view this film, they will find it definitely worth seeing a second time. It's very memorable in more ways than one. I would recommend this film to anyone because it is both entertaining and educational for all concerned. s