In an interview in 2012 Flipper writer and associate producer Ricou Browning said in 1961 he used his last $100 to write a book telling the boy and dolphin story and persuaded movie producer Ivan Tors to read the book. Tors liked it so much he made the Flipper movie.
Luke Halpin was 15, playing a 12-year-old. 6'5" Chuck Connors was deliberately cast as his father because Halpin would appear younger than his actual age next to him.
In a 2012 interview, associate producer and writer of "Flipper" Ricou Browning told how he helped teach Luke Halpin to ride the dolphin Mitzie like a horse providing compelling footage for the movie. At the movie premiere in 1963 in New York the LIFE magazine photographer sent to cover the event didn't believe the dolphin riding actually happened and actually questioned Browning, producer Ivan Tors and Luke Halpin separately about the technique before he would believe them.
Some articles during the 1960s stated that Luke Halpin was 13 when this film was made. However, Halpin himself said he was 15.
Lee Phillips and Rene Burau appear as extras in the Flipper movie - Lee as the father of the boy who accidentally spears Flipper and is injured underwater and Rene as his 11 year old cousin and skeptic of Flipper's ability to do tricks. Both actors appear together in a familial role two years later in 1964 in Show # 14 "Danger" in Series 1 of the Flipper TV series: Lee Phillips as fraudster Dick Johnson and Rene Burau as Timmy his 13 year old son.