Product: Born Free [VHS] (1966)
Rating: 4.0
One of the all-time great animal films
Along with Lassie Come Home, Born Free is probably the gold standard of animal movies in terms, and there's a lot to like in this story of Joy Adamson and her gamekeeper husband trying to return the domesticated lioness Elsa to the wild: the lion cubs are cute, the Scope wildlife photography still impressive and John Barry's score especially beautiful (the famous Matt Munro song was added to the end titles after the film was already on release. Where it shows its age is when the humans take centre-stage. At times Virginia McKenna can be a bit too head girl of the hockey school as Joy Adamson for a modern audience - while the Adamsons' real-life relationship was so tempestuous they spent much of their lives apart (Travers recalled that during filming whenever George was in the doghouse, Joy would treat him with equal condescension), their movie incarnations are so determinedly nice they make characters from Disney films of the 60s look like axe murderers. That said, McKenna and Travers are one of the few real-life married couples who make a convincing couple onscreen, bringing a comfortable familiarity to their scenes that smoothes over some of the more twee dialogue.Its surprise success after a slow start led to director James Hill reluctantly being typecast on many of the slew of similar animal films that followed in its wake while his two stars started the Born Free foundation to release zoo animals into the wild. It also led to a very unfortunate sequel, Living Free, though none of the key players apart from Carl Foreman would return.Not much in the way of extras - only trailers - but a good widescreen transfer.