Smart Dolphin, Turquoise Water -- Filmed On A Bahamas Beach, `Flipper' Just Might Cure Your Rainy-May Funk

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 that has made him an all-wet icon for over three decades. Universal, perhaps looking longingly at the surprise box office 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 dophins to replace her.

From 1964 to 1968, "Flipper" as a 30-minute TV show wowed the younger set with Brian Kelly as the dad, the chief ranger of Coral Key Park, Fla., and his two sons, Sandy and Bud (Luke Halpin and Tommy Norden) as the boys for whom Flipper flipped. It's been in reruns ever since.

The new, $10 million, big-screen flick has the 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 Paul 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. 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 one $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, his "Dundee" 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, though, Hogan was attracted to the part of Porter, an ex-hippie who once was a roadie for the Beach Boys but now is a fisherman. He also was interested that the film would be shot in the Bahamas.

Looking back, he recalls "even paradise can get boring after three weeks or so."

Wood, frequent cover boy for Tiger Beat and other teen magazines, is aware of why he 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" (opposite Kevin Costner).

For the first time, Elijah has a girl friend 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 three 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. 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 claims that "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.

Luke Halpin, who played Sandy in the TV series as well as in the original 1963 movie, played one of the villains in the new film. "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."