Born Free (1966) is an Open Road Films Ltd./Columbia Pictures feature film starring
Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy
and George Adamson, a real-life
couple who raised Elsa the Lioness
an orphaned lion cub to adulthood, and released her into the wilds
of Kenya
. The
screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer
Lester Cole (under the pseudonym "Gerald L.C.
Copley"), was based upon Joy Adamson's
1960 non-fictional book
Born
Free. The film was directed by
James
H. Hill and produced by
Sam Jaffe and
Paul Radin.
Born Free, and its musical
score by
John Barry, won
numerous awards.
Plot and cast
The Adamsons tend three orphaned lion cubs to young lionhood, and,
when the time comes, the two largest are sent to the Rotterdam Zoo,
while
Elsa the Lioness (the
youngest of the litter) remains with Joy. When Elsa is held
responsible for stampeding a herd of elephants through a village,
John Kendall (
Geoffrey Keen),
Adamson's boss, gives the couple three months to either
rehabilitate Elsa to the wild, or send her to a zoo. Joy opposes
sending Elsa to a zoo, and spends much time attempting to
re-introduce Elsa to the life of a wild lion in a distant reserve.
At last, Joy succeeds, and with mixed feelings and a breaking
heart, she returns her friend to the wild. The Adamsons then depart
for their home in England; a year later, they return to Kenya for a
week, hoping to find Elsa. They do, and happily discover she hasn't
forgotten them, and is the mother of three cubs.
Cast includes
Surya Patel as the Doctor,
Geoffrey Best as Watson, a big game
hunter, and
Bill Godden as Sam. The film
also credits lions and lionesses Boy and Girl (siblings),
Henrietta,
Mara, Ugas, and "The
Cubs".
Production notes
George Adamson served as Chief Technical Advisor on the film, and
discusses his involvement in his first autobiography,
Bwana
Game (U.K. title,
1968)
known in the U.S. as
A Lifetime with Lions.
The making of the film was a life-changing experience for actors
Virginia McKenna and her husband
Bill Travers, who became
animal rights activists, and were instrumental
in creating the
Born Free
Foundation.
Title song
The title song written by composer John Barry, "
Born Free" became a pop hit for pianist
Roger Williams, for
Matt Monro (who sang the song in the
film), and for
The Hesitations.
Andy Williams also covered the song,
and released an album of the same name.
Reception
Vincent Canby waxed enthusiastic about
the film, writing in the
New York
Times, "Almost from the opening shot — a vast expanse of
corn-colored African plain where lions feed on the carcass of a
freshly killed zebra — one knows that Joy Adamson's best-selling
book "Born Free" has been entrusted to honest, intelligent
filmmakers. Without minimizing the facts of animal life or overly
sentimentalizing them, this film casts an enchantment that is just
about irresistible."
In an interview with
Entertainment
Weekly (while still running as the democratic candidate for the
presidency), president
Barack Obama
said that
Born Free was one of the first movies he had
ever seen, and that he remembered it having an impact on him at an
early age.
Awards and nominations
Sequels and subsequent film and television developments
The book
Born Free was followed by two other books,
Living Free and
Forever Free.
In film
The Lions are Free
(
1969) follows the lion performers of
the film
Born Free.
Bill Travers
journeys to a remote area in Kenya to visit
George Adamson, and several of
George's lion friends.
A sequel,
Living Free
(
1972), starred
Susan Hampshire and
Nigel Davenport as Joy and George Adamson.
The sequel is based not on the book by the same name, but on the
third book of the series,
Forever
Free.
To Walk With Lions
(
1999) depicts the last years of George
Adamson's life, as seen through the eyes of his assistant,
Tony Fitzjohn. George is portrayed by
Richard Harris, and
Honor Blackman makes a brief appearance as
Joy.
Television
In
1974, a thirteen-episode
American television series was broadcast by
NBC,
entitled
Born Free,
starring
Diana Muldaur and
Gary Collins as Joy and George Adamson.
The series was completely fictional.
The final installment of the television franchise so far is a
television movie called
Born
Free: A New Adventure which was released in 1996, with
Linda Purl and
Chris Noth. Joy and George Adamson do not appear
as the main characters in the story.
References
External links
Wikis
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