George Sanders George Sanders Джордж Сандерс, George Henry Sanders Categories: Set cemetery Person George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a Russian-born English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His heavy English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), and his five-film tenure playing crimefighter Simon Templar (a.k.a. The Saint) in the 1930s and '40s. His career spanned more than 40 years. Early life Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, at number 6 Petrovski Ostrov.

His parents were Henry Peter Ernest Sanders (1868–1960), and Margarethe Jenny Bertha Sanders (1883–1967) née Kolbe, born in Saint Petersburg, of mostly German, but also Estonian & Scottish heritage. A 1990 biography claimed his father was the illegitimate son of a Russian noblewoman of the Czar’s court and a prince of the House of Oldenburg, married to a sister of the Czar. Actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was his elder brother. His younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912. The future actor was 11 when, in 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the family moved to England. Like his brother, he attended Bedales School, Brighton College, a boys' independent school in Brighton, Sussex, then went on to Manchester Technical College. After graduation, he worked at an advertising agency, where the company secretary, aspiring actress Greer Garson, suggested he take up a career in acting.

Career Sanders made his British film debut in 1929, Seven years later, after a series of British films, his first role in an American production was Lloyd's of London (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy. His smooth, upper-class English accent and sleek British manner, along with a suave, superior and somewhat threatening air, put him in demand for American films throughout the following decade. He played supporting roles in A-pictures productions such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), in which he and Judith Anderson played cruel foils to Joan Fontaine's character, and in the director's Foreign Correspondent, later that year, he played one of his career's few heroic parts. He had leading roles in lower-budget pictures such as Rage in Heaven (1941), and in both The Falcon and The Saint film series. In 1942, Sanders handed the Falcon role to his brother Tom, in The Falcon's Brother. The only other film in which the two acting siblings appeared together was Death of a Scoundrel (1956), in which they also played brothers.

Sanders played Lord Henry Wotton in the film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and he was the third lead in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in the leads. Sanders gave one of his most well received performances, starring with Angela Lansbury in director Albert Lewin's The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (also 1947) taken from an 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant. He and Lansbury also featured in Cecil B. deMille's biblical epic Samson and Delilah (1949). For perhaps his best role as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt, in All About Eve (1950), Sanders won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. He then starred as Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), dying in a duel with Robert Taylor after professing his love for Jewish maiden Rebecca, played by Elizabeth Taylor. Sanders starred as King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954).

Peter Sellers and Sanders appeared together in the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964). Sanders had earlier inspired Peter Sellers' character Hercules Grytpype-Thynne in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show (1951–60). Sanders went into television with the series The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957). He played an upper-crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in the The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" (1965) and reprised the role later in that same year in "The Yukon Affair". He also portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the live-action Batman TV series which were shown in February 1966. Sanders voiced the malevolent Shere Khan in the Walt Disney production of The Jungle Book (1967). He had a supporting role in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter (1969), in which his first scene showed him dressed in drag and playing piano in a San Francisco gay bar. One of Sanders' final screen roles was in Doomwatch (1972), a feature film version of a contemporary BBC television series .

Novels Two ghostwritten crime novels were published under his name to cash in on his fame. The first was Crime on My Hands (1944), written in the first person and mentioning his "Saint" and "Falcon" films. This was followed by Stranger at Home in 1946. Both were actually written by female authors: the former by Craig Rice, and the latter by Leigh Brackett. Singing In 1958, Sanders recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady. The album was released by ABC-Paramount Records, and carried lush string arrangements of romantic ballads, crooned by Sanders in a fit baritone/bass (spanning from low to middle C), including "Such is My Love", a song of Sanders' own composition. After going to great lengths, he got himself signed to sing in South Pacific but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the role and quickly dropped out. Sanders' singing voice can be heard in Call Me Madam (1953). He also signed on for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical Sherry!

(1967), based on the Kaufman–Hart play The Man Who Came to Dinner, but he found the ongoing stage production highly demanding. He quit when his wife Benita Hume discovered she had terminal bone cancer. During the production of The Jungle Book, Sanders, who voiced Shere Khan, refused to provide the singing voice for his character during the finalized recording of the song, "That's What Friends Are For". According to Richard Sherman, Mellomen member Bill Lee was called in to substitute for Sanders. Personal life On 27 October 1940, Sanders married Susan Larson; the couple divorced in 1949. From later that year until 1954, Sanders was married to Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, with whom he starred in the film Death of a Scoundrel (1956) after their divorce. On 10 February 1959, Sanders married actress Benita Hume, widow of actor Ronald Colman. She died in 1967, the same year Sanders' brother Tom Conway died of liver failure. Sanders had become distant from his brother a decade before due to Conway's drinking problem.

Sanders endured a further blow in the same year with the death of his mother Margaret Sanders. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, was published in 1960 and gathered critical praise for its wit. Sanders suggested the title A Dreadful Man for his biography, which was later written by Sanders' friend Brian Aherne and published in 1979. Sanders' last marriage was on 4 December 1970, to Magda Gabor, the elder sister of his second wife. This marriage lasted only 32 days, after which he began drinking heavily. Later years and death Sanders suffered from dementia, worsened by waning health. He teeters in his last films, owing to a loss of balance. According to Aherne's biography, he also had a minor stroke. Sanders could not bear the notion of losing his health or needing help from someone else, and he became deeply depressed. At about this time, Sanders found he could no longer play his grand piano, which he dragged outside and smashed with an axe. His last girlfriend, who was Mexican and much younger than he, persuaded Sanders to sell his beloved house in Majorca, Spain, which he later bitterly regretted.

From then on, he drifted. On 23 April 1972, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into a cardiac arrest, after taking five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal. His death was officially a suicide since he left behind three suicide notes, which read: Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck. (His signature appeared under the message.) Sanders' body was returned to Britain for funeral services, after which it was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the English Channel. David Niven wrote in his second autobiography, Bring on the Empty Horses (1975), that in 1937 his friend George Sanders had predicted he would commit suicide when he was 65, and in his 50s, he appeared depressed since his marriages had failed and several tragedies had befallen him. Honours Sanders garnered two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for films at 1636 Vine Street and for television at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard.

This fact is mentioned in the song Celluloid Heroes by the Kinks: "If you covered him with garbage/ George Sanders would still have style." His ghost makes an appearance in Clive Barker's novel Coldheart Canyon (2001) as well as in the animated feature 2007 animated film Dante's Inferno. In 2005, Charles Dennis wrote and played Sanders in his play High Class Heel at the National Arts Club in New York City. Filmography Love, Life and Laughter (1934) Dishonour Bright (1936) The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936) Things to Come (1936) (extra) Lancer Spy (1937) Four Men and a Prayer (1938) International Settlement (1938) Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) Mr.

Moto's Last Warning (1939) Nurse Edith Cavell (1939) So This Is London (1939) The Outsider (1939) The Saint Strikes Back (1939) The Saint in London (1939) Bitter Sweet (1940) The House of the Seven Gables (1940) The Saint Takes Over (1940) The Saint's Double Trouble (1940) A Date with the Falcon (1941) Man Hunt (1941) The Saint in Palm Springs (1941) The Son of Monte Cristo (1941) Her Cardboard Lover (1942) Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942) Tales of Manhattan (1942) The Moon and Sixpence (1942) The Black Swan (1942) The Falcon Takes Over (1942) The Falcon's Brother (1942) They Came to Blow Up America (1943) This Land Is Mine (1943) Action in Arabia (1944) The Picture of D

orian Gray (1945) The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) A Scandal in Paris (1946) The Strange Woman (1946) The Ghost and Mrs.

Muir (1947) The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947) Blackjack (1949) I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1951) The Light Touch (1951) Run for the Hills (1953) Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) (1954) King Richard and the Crusaders (1954) Witness to Murder (1954) The Big Tip Off (1955) The King's Thief (1955) Death of a Scoundrel (1956) Never Say Goodbye (1956) While the City Sleeps (1956) The Seventh Sin (1957) From the Earth to the Moon (1958) Outcasts of the City (1958) The Whole Truth (1958) That Kind of Woman (1959) A Touch of Larceny (1960) Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons (1960) Village of the Damned (1960) Five Golden Hours (1961) The Rebel (aka, Call Me Genius,

 1961) In Search of the Castaways (1962) Operation Snatch (1962) A Shot in the Dark (1964) Dark Purpose (1964) Ecco (aka This Shocking World) (1964) (narrator) Last Plane to Baalbeck (1965) The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) The Billionaire (1965) The Jungle Book (1967) (voice) Warning Shot (1967) The Girl from Rio (1968) One Step to Hell aka Caccia ai violenti (1969) The Best House in London (1969) The Body Stealers (1969) The Night of the Assassins (1970) The Kremlin Letter (1970) Ford Star Jubilee "You're the Top" (1956) The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957) What's My Line?

15 September 1957 (Episode No. 380) (Season 9, Ep 3) Mystery Guest Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea "The Traitor" (1965) The Rogues (1965) The Man From U.N.C.L.E. "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" and "The Yukon Affair" (1965) Daniel Boone (1966) Mission: Impossible: The Merchant (1971) Broadway 1000+ images about George Sanders & Company on Pinterest | Supporting actor, Toms and All about eve Forward With his sophisticated mannerisms, charming persona, and silky, deep voice, it didn’t take long for George Sanders to take Hollywood by storm as the villainous and smarmy scoundrel, which he showcased wonderfully in films like Rebecca, All About Eve, and The Picture of Dorian Grey. He even lent his voice to Shere Khan in the animated film The Jungle Book. See More George Sanders : definition of George Sanders and synonyms of George Sanders (English) 10 External links Early life Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg , Imperial Russia , at number 6 Petrovski Ostrov.

His English parents were Henry Sanders (1873–1961) and Margaret Sanders (1875–1967). Actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was his elder brother. His younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912. George was 11 when, in 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution , the family went back to England . [1] Like his brother, he attended Brighton College , a boys' independent school in Brighton , Sussex , then went on to Manchester Technical College . [2] After graduation, he worked at an advertising agency, where the company secretary, aspiring actress Greer Garson , suggested he take up a career in acting. [3] Career Foreign Correspondent (1940) Sanders made his British film debut in 1929. Seven years later, after a series of British films, his first role in an American production was Lloyd's of London (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy.

His smooth, upper-crust English accent and sleek British manner, along with a suave, snobbish and somewhat threatening air, put him in demand for American films throughout the following decade. [4] He played supporting roles in high-end productions such as Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), in which he and Judith Anderson played cruel foils to Joan Fontaine 's character. He had leading roles in somewhat lower-budget pictures such as Rage in Heaven (1941). He also played the lead in both The Falcon and The Saint film series. [5] In 1942, Sanders handed the Falcon role to his brother Tom, in The Falcon's Brother . The only other film in which the two brothers appeared together was Death of a Scoundrel (1956), in which they also played brothers. Sanders played Lord Henry Wotton in the 1945 film version of The Picture of Dorian Gray . In 1947, he co-starred with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir .

That same year, he gave one of his most critically noted performances, starring with Angela Lansbury in director Albert Lewin 's little-known film The Private Affairs of Bel Ami , taken from an 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant . He and Lansbury also featured in Cecil B. deMille 's biblical epic Samson and Delilah in 1949. as Addison DeWitt in the trailer for All About Eve (1950) In 1950, Sanders drew his greatest popular and commercial success as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt, in All About Eve , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor . [6] He then starred as Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert in the 1952 film Ivanhoe , dying in a duel with Robert Taylor after professing his love for Jewish maiden Rebecca, played by Elizabeth Taylor . Sanders went into television with the successful series The George Sanders Mystery Theater . He played an upper-crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in the 1965 The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

episode "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" and reprised the role later in that same year in "The Yukon Affair". He also portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the live-action Batman TV series which were shown in February 1966. In 1967, Sanders voiced the malevolent Shere Khan in the Walt Disney production of The Jungle Book . During the production of The Jungle Book 's soundtrack, Sanders was unavailable to provide the singing voice for Shere Khan during the final recording of the song, " That's What Friends Are For " despite being an accomplished singer. Mellomen member Bill Lee was called in to substitute for Sanders and can be heard on the soundtrack. [7] In the film, however, all the singing was done live and Sanders provided Khan's singing voice. Sanders' smooth voice, urbane manner and upper-class British accent inspired Peter Sellers ' character " Hercules Grytpype-Thynne " in the famous 1950s BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show . In 1964, Sellers and Sanders appeared together in the Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark .

In 1969, he had a supporting role in John Huston 's The Kremlin Letter , in which his first scene showed him dressed in drag and playing piano in a snooty San Francisco gay bar . One of Sanders' final screen roles was in a 1972 feature film version of the BBC television series Doomwatch . Novels Two ghostwritten crime novels were published under his name to cash in on his fame. The first was Crime on My Hands (1944), written in the first person and mentioning his "Saint" and "Falcon" movies. This was followed by Stranger at Home in 1946. Both were actually written by female authors: the former by Craig Rice , and the latter by Leigh Brackett . as Lord Henry Wotton in the trailer for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Singing In 1958, Sanders recorded an album called The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady.

The album was released by ABC-Paramount Records , and carried lush string arrangements of romantic ballads, crooned by Sanders in a fit baritone/bass (spanning from low to middle C), including "Such is My Love", a song of Sanders' own composition. After going to great lengths, he got himself signed to sing in South Pacific but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the role and quickly dropped out. Sanders' singing voice can be heard in Call Me Madam (1953). He also signed on for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical Sherry! (1967), based on the Kaufman –- Hart play The Man Who Came to Dinner , but he found the ongoing stage production highly demanding. He quit when his wife Benita Hume discovered she had terminal bone cancer . During the production of The Jungle Book , Sanders was able to provide the singing voice for Shere Khan during the film, but was unavailable during the final recording of the song, " That's What Friends Are For ". According to Richard Sherman , Mellomen member Bill Lee was called in to substitute for Sanders at this time.

[7] Personal life On 27 October 1940, Sanders married Susan Larson; they divorced in 1949. From later that year until 1954, Sanders was married to Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (with whom he starred in the 1956 film Death of a Scoundrel after their divorce). On 10 February 1959, Sanders married actress Benita Hume , widow of actor Ronald Colman . She died in 1967. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, was published in 1960 and gathered critical praise for its wit. Sanders suggested the title A Dreadful Man for his biography, which was later written by Sanders' friend Brian Aherne , and published in 1979. Sanders' last marriage was on 4 December 1970, to Magda Gabor , the elder sister of his second wife. This marriage lasted only six weeks, after which he began drinking heavily. In his later years, Sanders suffered from bewilderment and bouts of anger, worsened by waning health. He can be seen teetering in his last films, owing to a loss of balance.

According to Aherne's biography, he also had a minor stroke . Sanders' speech sounds impaired in the low-budget film Psychomania , his last film performance. Sanders could not bear the notion of losing his health or needing help from someone else, and he became deeply depressed. At about this time, Sanders found he could no longer play his grand piano , which he dragged outside and smashed with an axe. His last girlfriend, who was Mexican and much younger than he, persuaded Sanders to sell his beloved house in Majorca , Spain , which he later bitterly regretted. From then on, he drifted. George Sanders as Captain Billy Leech in The Black Swan (1942) Death On 23 April 1972, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels , a coastal town near Barcelona . He was found dead two days later, having taken five bottles of Nembutal . [8] [9] Sanders was 65 years old. He left behind a suicide note , which read: Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.

Sanders' body was cremated , and the ashes were scattered in the English Channel . David Niven wrote in his autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon (1972), that in 1937 his friend George Sanders had predicted he would commit suicide when he was 65. [10] Honours Sanders garnered two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , for motion pictures at 1636 Vine Street and for television at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard. He is mentioned in The Kinks ' song " Celluloid Heroes " and his ghost makes an appearance in Clive Barker 's 2001 novel Coldheart Canyon , as well as in the 2007 animated feature Dante's Inferno . Filmography ^ Sanders 1960, pp. 9–10, 13. ^ Sanders 1960, p. 17. ^ Sanders 1960, pp. 199–200, 202. ^ McNally 2008, p. 33.

The Jungle Book (1967) | Moviepedia | Fandom powered by Wikia The Jungle Book (1967) $205,843,612 [3] The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions and was released on October 18, 1967. It is the 19th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It was inspired by the stories about the feral child Mowgli from the book of the same name by Rudyard Kipling . Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman , it was the last to be produced by Walt Disney , who died during its production. The early versions of both the screenplay and the soundtrack followed Kipling's work more closely, with a dramatic, dark, and sinister tone which Disney did not want in his family film, leading to writer Bill Peet and composer Terry Gilkyson being replaced. The casting employed famous actors and musicians Phil Harris , Sebastian Cabot , George Sanders and Louis Prima , as well as Disney regulars such as Sterling Holloway , J.

Pat O'Malley and Verna Felton , and the director's son, Bruce Reitherman , as Mowgli. The Jungle Book was released to positive reception, with much acclaim to its soundtrack, featuring five songs by the Sherman Brothers and one by Gilkyson, " The Bare Necessities ". The film grossed over $73 million in the United States in its first release, and as much again from two re-releases. After the film's success, Disney later released a live-action remake and a theatrical sequel, The Jungle Book 2 . Contents Edit Mowgli , a young orphan boy, is found in a basket in the deep jungles of Madhya Pradesh , India . Bagheera , a black panther who discovers the baby, promptly takes him to a mother Indian Wolf who has just had cubs. She raises him along with her own cubs and Mowgli soon becomes well acquainted with jungle life. Mowgli is shown ten years later, playing with his wolf siblings. One night, when the wolf tribe learns that Shere Khan , a man-eating Bengal tiger , has returned to the jungle, they realize that Mowgli must be taken to the "man village" for his own safety.

Bagheera volunteers to escort him back. They leave that very night, but Mowgli is determined to stay in the jungle. He and Bagheera rest in a tree for the night, when Kaa , a hungry Indian Python , appears and hypnotizes Mowgli into a deep and peaceful sleep, traps him tightly in his coils and tries to devour him, but fails when Bagheera intervenes. The next morning, Mowgli tries to join the elephant patrol led by Colonel Hathi and his wife Winifred. Bagheera finds Mowgli and they argue which results in Bagheera leaving Mowgli on his own. Mowgli soon meets up with the laid-back, fun-loving sloth bear Baloo , who shows Mowgli the fun of having a care-free life and promises to raise Mowgli himself and never take him back to the Man-Village. Mowgli now wants to stay in the jungle more than ever.

Shortly afterwards, Baloo is tricked and outsmarted by a gang of monkeys who kidnap Mowgli and take him to their leader, King Louie the orangutan , who makes a deal with Mowgli that if he tells him the secret of making fire like a human, then he will make it so he can stay in the jungle. However, since he was not raised by humans, Mowgli does not know how to make fire. Bagheera and Baloo arrive to rescue Mowgli and in the ensuing chaos, King Louie's palace is demolished to rubble. Bagheera speaks to Baloo that night and convinces him that the jungle will never be safe for Mowgli so long as Shere Khan is there. In the morning, Baloo reluctantly explains to Mowgli that the man village is best for the boy, but Mowgli accuses him of breaking his promise and runs away. As Baloo sets off on foot in search of Mowgli, Bagheera rallies the help of Hathi and his patrol to make a search party.

However, Shere Khan himself, who was eavesdropping on Bagheera and Hathi's conversation, is now determined to hunt and kill Mowgli himself. Meanwhile, Mowgli has encountered Kaa once again in a different tree and the hungry python exacts his revenge by hypnotizing Mowgli again, and tries to eat him, but thanks to the unwitting intervention of the suspicious Shere Khan, Mowgli awakens again, tricks the snake again, and escapes. As a storm gathers, a depressed Mowgli encounters a group of puckish but friendly vultures who closely resemble The Beatles , and they agree to be his friends as they too are outcasts, and feel that everyone has to have friends. Shere Khan appears shortly after, scaring off the Vultures and confronting Mowgli. Baloo rushes to the rescue and tries to keep Shere Khan away from Mowgli, but is injured. When lightning strikes a nearby tree and sets it ablaze, the vultures swoop in to distract Shere Khan while Mowgli gathers flaming branches and ties them to Shere Khan's tail. As fire is his only fear, the tiger panics and runs off.

Bagheera and Baloo take Mowgli to the edge of the Man-Village, but Mowgli is still hesitant to go there. His mind soon changes when he is smitten by a beautiful young girl from the village who is coming down by the riverside to fetch water. After noticing Mowgli, she "accidentally" drops her water pot, and Mowgli retrieves it for her and follows her into the man village. After Mowgli chooses to stay in the man village, Baloo and Bagheera decide to head home, content that Mowgli is safe and happy with his own kind. Rollista Edit After The Sword in the Stone was released, storyman Bill Peet claimed to Walt Disney that "we [The animation departement] can do more interesting animal characters" and suggested that Rudyard Kipling 's The Jungle Book could be used for the studio's next film. [7] Disney agreed and Peet created an original treatment, with little supervision, as he had done with One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone.

However, after the disappointing reaction to The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney decided to become more involved in the story than he had been with the past two films, [8] with his nephew Roy E. Disney saying that "[he] certainly influenced everything about it. (...) With Jungle Book, he obviously got hooked on the jungle and the characters that lived there." [9] Peet decided to follow closely the dramatic, dark, and sinister tone of Kipling's book, which is about the struggles between animals and man. However, the writer decided make the story more straightforward, as the novel is very episodic, with Mowgli going back and forth from the jungle to the man village, and Peet felt that Mowgli returning to the man village should be the ending for the film. Following suggestions, Peet also created two original characters: Shanti, the human girl for which Mowgli falls, as the animators considered that falling in love would be the best excuse for Mowgli to leave the jungle; and Louie, king of the monkeys. Louie was less comical character, enslaving Mowgli trying to get the boy to teach him to make fire.

The orangutan would also show a plot point borrowed from The Second Jungle Book , gold and jewels under his ruins - after Mowgli got to the man village, a poacher would drag the boy back to the ruins in search for the treasure. [2] [8] Disney was not pleased with how the story was turning out, as he felt it was too dark for family viewing and insisted on script changes. Peet refused, and after a long argument, Peet left the Disney studio in January 1964. [7] Disney then assigned Larry Clemmons as his new writer and one of the four story men for the film, giving Clemmons a copy of Kipling's book, and telling him: "The first thing I want you to do is not to read it." [8] Clemmons still looked at the novel, and thought it was too disjointed and without continuity, needing adaptations to fit a film script. Clemmons wanted to start in media res , with some flashbacks afterwards, but then Disney said to focus on doing the storyline more straight - "Let's do the meat of the picture. Let's establish the characters. Let's have fun with it.".

[10] Although much of Bill Peet's work was discarded, the personalities of the characters remained in the final film. This was because Disney felt that the story should be kept simple he and that the characters should drive the story. Disney took an active role in the story meetings, acting out each role and helping to explore the emotions of the characters, help create gags and develop emotional sequences. [8] Clemmons would write a rough script with an outline for most sequences. The story artists then discussed how to fill the scenes, including the comedic gags to employ. [1] [11] The script also tried to incorporate how the voice actors molded their characters and interacted with each other. [12] The Jungle Book also marks the last animated film from the company to have Disney's personal touches, before his death on December 15, 1966. [13] Casting Template:Rquote Many familiar voices inspired the animators in their creation of the characters [8] and helped them shape their personalities. [13] This use of familiar voices for key characters was a rarity in Disney's past films.

[8] The staff was shocked to hear that a wise cracking comedian, Phil Harris was going to be in a Kipling film. Disney suggested Harris after meeting him at a party. [14] Harris improvised most of his lines, as he considered the scripted lines "didn't feel natural". [7] After Harris was cast, Disneyland Records president Jimmy Johnson suggested Disney to get Louie Prima as King Louie, as he "felt that Louis would be great as foil ". [15] Walt also cast other prominent actors such as George Sanders as Shere Khan and Sebastian Cabot as Bagheera. Additionally, he cast regular Disney voices such as Sterling Holloway as Kaa, J. Pat O'Malley as Colonel Hathi and Buzzie the Vulture and Verna Felton as Hathi's wife. This was her last film before she died. [13] David Bailey was originally cast as Mowgli, but his voice changed during production, leading Bailey to not fit the "young innocence of Mowgli's character" which the producers were aiming at anymore. Thus director Wolfgang Reitherman cast his son Bruce , who had just voiced Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree .

The animators shot footage of Bruce as a guide for the character's performance. [7] [16] Child actress Darlene Carr was going around singing in the studio when composers Sherman Brothers asked her to record a demo of Shanti's song " My Own Home ". Carr's performance impressed Disney enough for him to cast her as Shanti. [17] In the original book, the vultures are grim and evil characters who feast on the dead. Disney lightened it up by having the vultures bearing a physical and vocal resemblance to The Beatles , including the signature mop-top haircut . It was also planned to have the members of the band to both voice the characters and sing their song, " That's What Friends Are For ". However, scheduling conflicts, added to John Lennon reacting badly, lead to the idea being discarded. [18] The casting of the vultures still brought a British Invasion musician, Chad Stuart of the duo Chad & Jeremy .

[7] In earlier drafts of the scene the vultures had a near-sighted Rhinoceros friend named Rocky, who was to be voiced by Frank Fontaine , however Walt decided to cut the character for feeling that the film had already much action with the monkeys and vultures. [19] Animation Edit While many of the later Disney feature films had animators being responsible for single characters, in The Jungle Book the animators were in charge of whole sequences, since many have characters interacting with one another. The animation was done by xerography , with character design, lead by Ken Anderson , employing rough, artistic edges in contrast to the round animals seen in productions such as Dumbo . [20] Anderson also decided to make Shere Khan resemble his voice actor, George Sanders. [7] Backgrounds were hand-painted - with exception of the waterfall, mostly consisting of footage of the Angel Falls - and sometimes scenery was used in both foreground and bottom to create a notion of depth. Following one of Reitherman's trademarks of reusing animation of his previous films, the wolf cubs are based on dogs from 101 Dalmatians.

Animator Milt Kahl based Bagheera and Shere Kahn's movements on live-action felines, which he saw in two Disney productions, A Tiger Walks and the "Jungle Cat" episode of True-Life Adventures . [20] Baloo was also based on footage of bears, even incorporating the animal's pechant for scratching. Since Kaa has no limbs, its design received big expressive eyes, and parts of Kaa's body did the action that normally would be done with hands. [21] The monkeys' dance during " I Wan'na Be Like You " was partially inspired by a performance Louis Prima did with his band at Disney's soundstage to convince Walt Disney to cast him. [7] Music Main article: The Jungle Book (soundtrack) The instrumental music was written by George Bruns and orchestrated by Walter Sheets. Two of the cues were reused from previous Disney films. The scene where Mowgli wakes up after escaping King Louie used one of Bruns' themes for Sleeping Beauty ; and the scene where Bagheera gives a eulogy to Baloo when he mistakenly thinks the bear was killed by Shere Khan used Paul J. Smith 's organ score from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .

[22] The score features eight original songs: seven by the Sherman Brothers and one by Terry Gilkyson . Longtime Disney collaborator Gilkyson was the first songwriter to bring several complete songs which followed the book closely but Walt Disney felt that his efforts were too dark. The only piece of Gilkyson's work which survived to the final film was his upbeat tune " The Bare Necessities ", which was liked by the rest of the film crew. The Sherman Brothers were then brought in to do a complete rewrite. [7] Disney asked the siblings if they had read Kipling's book and they replied that they had done so "a long, long time ago" and that they had also seen the 1942 version by Alexander Korda . Disney said the "nice, mysterious, heavy stuff" from both works was not what he aimed for, instead going for a "lightness, a Disney touch". [23] Disney frequently brought the composers to the storyline sessions. [7] He asked them to "find scary places and write fun songs" for their compositions [22] that fit in with the story and advanced the plot instead of being interruptive.

[7] Release and reception Edit The Jungle Book was released in October 1967, [8] just 10 months after Walt's death. [13] Some copies were in a double feature with Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar . [24] The film was a success, earning $73 million in just its domestic release, [13] mostly due to the popularity of its musical numbers, [8] and finished 1967 as the fourth highest-grossing movie of the year. [25] The Jungle Book was re-released theatrically in North America three times, 1978 , 1984 , and 1990 , and also in Europe throughout the 1980s. [26] The total gross is $141 million in the United States and $205 million worldwide. [3] The North American total, after adjustments for inflation , is estimated to be the 29th highest grossing film of all time in the United States.

[27] Home media Edit The Jungle Book was released in the United States on VHS in 1991 as part of the Walt Disney Classics product line, and in 1997 as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection for the film's 30th anniversary. [26] A Limited Issue DVD was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in 1999. [28] The film was released once again as a 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD on October 2, 2007 to commemorate its 40th anniversary. [29] Its release was accompanied by a limited 18-day run at Disney's own El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, with the opening night featuring a panel with composer Richard Sherman and voice actors Bruce Reitherman, Darlene Carr and Chad Stuart. [30] The Platinum DVD was put on moratorium in 2010. [31] The film will be released on Blu-Ray /DVD/Digital Copy Combo pack in Spring 2014 as part of Disney's Diamond Edition line.

[32] Critical reception Edit The Jungle Book received an outpouring of positive reviews upon release, undoubtedly influenced by a nostalgic reaction to the passing of Disney. [13] Time noted that the film strayed far from the Kipling stories, but "the result is thoroughly delightful...it is the happiest possible way to remember Walt Disney." [13] The New York Times called in "a perfectly dandy cartoon feature," [24] and Life magazine referred to it as "the best thing of its kind since Dumbo , another short, bright, unscary and blessedly uncultivated cartoon." [33] Some negative reviews came from Judith Crist , who said the film was "devoid of mood or atmosphere." Variety 's review was generally positive, but they stated that "the story development is restrained" and that younger audiences "may squirm at times." [13] Retrospective reviews were also positive, with the film's animation, characters and music receiving much praise throughout the years.

[34] In 1990, when the film had its last theatrical re-release, Entertainment Weekly considered that The Jungle Book "isn't a classic Walt Disney film on the order of, say, Cinderella or Pinocchio , but it's one of Disney's liveliest and funniest", [35] while the Los Angeles Times thought the film's crew was "near the height of their talents" and the resulting film "remains a high-spirited romp that will delight children--and parents weary of action films with body counts that exceed their box-office grosses." [36] In 2010, Empire described the film as one that "gets pretty much everything right", regarding that the vibrant animation and catchy songs overcame the plot deficiencies. [37] Awards Edit The song "The Bare Necessities" was nominated for Best Song at the 40th Academy Awards , losing to "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle . [38] Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Gregory Peck lobbied extensively for this film to be nominated for Best Picture, but was unsuccessful.

[37] It was not until 1991 when Disney's Beauty and the Beast that an animated film would be nominated for Best Picture. Edit In 1968, Disneyland Records released the album More Jungle Book, an unofficial sequel also written by screenwriter Larry Simmons, which continued the story of the film, and included Phil Harris and Louis Prima voicing their film roles. In the record, Baloo (Harris) is missing Mowgli ( Ginny Tyler ), so he teams up with King Louie (Prima) and Bagheera ( Dal McKennon ) to take him from the man village. [42] On February 14, 2003, DisneyToon Studios in Australia released a film sequel, The Jungle Book 2 , in which Mowgli runs away from the man village to see his animal friends, unaware that Shere Khan is more determined to kill him than ever. In 2005, screenwriter Robert Reece pitched Jungle Book 3 to Disney execs. However, the project never materialized.

[43] Elements of The Jungle Book were recycled in the later Disney feature film Robin Hood due to that film's limited budget, such as Baloo being inspiration for Little John (who not only was a bear, but also voiced by Phil Harris). In particular, the dance sequence between Baloo and King Louie was simply rotoscoped for Little John and Lady Cluck's dance. [44] It has been widely acclaimed by animators, with Eric Goldberg declaring The Jungle Book "boasts possibly the best character animation a studio has ever done". The animators of Aladdin , The Lion King and Lilo & Stitch claimed to have taken some inspiration from the design and animation of the film, and four people involved with Disney's animations, director Brad Bird and animators Andreas Deja , Glen Keane and Sergio Pablos, have declared the film to be their inspiration for entering the business. [45] Many characters appear in the 1990-91 animated series TaleSpin .

[46] Between 1996 and 1998, the TV series Jungle Cubs told the stories of Baloo, Hahti, Bagheera, Louie, Kaa, and Shere Khan when they were children. [47] Disney later made a live-action remake of the film, which was more of a realistic action - adventure film with somewhat-more adult themes. The film, released in 1994, differs even more from the book than its animated counterpart, but was still a box-office success. In 1998, Disney released a direct to video film entitled The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story . [48] There are two video games based on the film: The Jungle Book was a platformer released in 1993-4 for Master System, Mega Drive, Game Gear, Super NES, Game Boy and PC. A version for the Game Boy Advance was later released in 2003. The Jungle Book Groove Party was a dance mat game released in 2000 for PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Kaa and Shere Khan have also made cameo appearances in another Disney video game, Quackshot.

A world based on the film was intended to appear more than once in the Square Enix- Disney Kingdom Hearts video game series, but was omitted both times, first in the first game because it featured a similar world based on Tarzan , [49] and second in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep , presumably due to time constraints, although areas of the world are accessible via hacking codes in the latter. An artwork by British artist Banksy featuring the jungle book characters which had been commissioned by Greenpeace to help raise awareness of deforestation has gone on sale for the sum of £80,000 pounds sterling. [50] References Were You Born Today? 3rd of July (Master) - Sentimental Journey To The 50's A Trip Back In Time more...... George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was an English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned more than 40 years. His upper-class English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters.

He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), and as Simon Templar , "The Saint", in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s. Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire , at number 6 Petrovski Ostrov. His parents were Henry Peter Ernest Sanders [1] (1868–1960), [2] and Margarethe Jenny Bertha Sanders (1883–1967) née Kolbe, born in Saint Petersburg, of mostly German, but also Estonian and Scottish ancestry. [3] [4] A biography published in 1990 claimed that Sanders's father was the illegitimate son of a Russian noblewoman of the Czar’s court and a prince of the House of Oldenburg , married to a sister of the Czar. [5] a[›] .

The actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was George Sanders's elder brother. Their younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912. more....... Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV; July 3, 1962) is an American actor and filmmaker. Cruise has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won three Golden Globe Awards . He started his career at age 19 in the 1981 film Endless Love . After portraying supporting roles in Taps (1981) and The Outsiders (1983), his first leading role was in the romantic comedy Risky Business , released in August 1983. Cruise became a full-fledged movie star after starring as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the action drama Top Gun (1986). Since 1996 he has been well known for his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible film series, which has a fifth film set for release in 2015. more....... Betty Lynn Buckley (born July 3, 1947) is an American stage, film and television actress and singer.

She is a Tony Award winner and a 2012 American Theater Hall of Fame inductee. [1] Buckley made her Broadway debut in the 1969 musical 1776 , and went on to appear in the 1973 Broadway musical Pippin . In 1976, she played gym teacher Ms. Collins in the Brian de Palma film Carrie , before going on to star for four seasons in the ABC series Eight Is Enough (1977–81). For her role as Grizabella in the original Broadway production of Cats , she won the 1983 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical . 1983 also saw her play country singer Dixie Scott in the Bruce Beresford film Tender Mercies . In 1988, she starred in the short-lived Broadway musical production of arrie , this time playing Carrie's mother, Margaret White.

The Jungle Book - Everything2.com The Jungle Book by Segnbora-t Thu Feb 10 2000 at 21:31:26 A classic book by Rudyard Kipling , the most well-known portion of which about a human baby ( Mowgli ) and raised by wolves (there are other stories in the original book). That part has been made into two different live action movies and a Disney animated cartoon . All the book is very good. by TheLady Sat Jan 06 2001 at 4:14:28 Far from being anything like the Disney version, the original stories about Mowgli are dark, steeped in a feeling of danger and conflict - very much in keeping, in fact, with what one would imagine a life in the wilds of the India n jungle to be like. I was afraid of the book when I was very young - I wouldn't read it all until I was in my teens . It just kept one on one's toes - one felt every gut-wrenching moment of constant, unrelenting peril that Mowgli's life was in from the day his parents were killed in the jungle.

To read through the stories and follow him grow up from a feeble, naked, toothless frogling into a man and a wolf , a master over animals, one who is feared and does not fear any longer, is just an amazing experience. A reaffirmation of our safety and superiority - a very Victorian moral. Release Date : 18 October 1967 When this film was released, it had been almost four years since the last animated feature from Disney . The intervening time had seen a couple of important event s for the company. Mary Poppins , possibly Disney's best and most successful live action (well, mostly ) film ever, was released in 1964 . But more significantly, Walt Disney himself had passed away, on 15 December 1966 . This was the last film he personally oversaw. Despite that sad note, the show must go on . And it did, and it has ever since, albeit with some bumps along the way. The Jungle Book is based -- loosely -- on one of the stories in the book of the same name by Rudyard Kipling . The story, at least in the film, focuses on the boy Mowgli , an orphan raised by wolves in the jungle.

At the time of the story, Mowgli has grown old enough that he can no longer remain in the jungle . The fierce tiger, Shere Khan , has vowed to kill the "man cub" before he can grow into a dangerous full-grown man. The wise panther Bagheera and his free-spirit bear friend Baloo must convince Mowgli to return to the human village, while keeping him away from Shere Khan, King Louie the orangutan , and Kaa the hypnotic python . The film is notable and memorable for several things. This was the first animated film to use the voices of several people famous outside of animation . First was Phil Harris , who lent his distinctive personality and voice to three Disney characters, of which Baloo was the first ( Thomas O'Malley and Little John were the others). He was a famous singer, actor, and bandleader , who appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, including Jack Benny 's and his own. Next is Sebastian Cabot , a distinguished film and television actor who lent his voice to Disney as Sir Ector in The Sword in the Stone , Bagheera in this film, and the Narrator in the Winnie-the-Pooh cartoons.

King Louie of the Apes was voiced by none other than the scat-singing jazz musician and composer Louis Prima . His duet with Phil Harris , " I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" is one of the most memorable moments in the film. George Sanders , famous for portraying debonair villain s and other unsavory characters, lent an air of nobility to Shere Khan , who otherwise would have been nothing but a forgettable, generic bad guy. OK, so maybe I'm overstating the case a bit. But a little more character development , along with Sanders' voice, would have made the evil tiger a truly memorable villain. By the way, Khan's singing voice was none other than that of Thurl Ravenscroft . Sterling Holloway was already familiar to Disney audiences as the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh , and he lent his distinctive soft, high-pitched voice to the cunning snake Kaa in this film. J. Pat O'Malley , although not the same as famous character actor Pat O'Malley , was nonetheless a well-known movie and TV actor when he was selected to voice Col. Hathi the Elephant.

This selection of well-known actors as voices -- two of whom were popular singers -- gave the animator s plenty of personality to work with, even before drawing a single line. The vivid characterizations of Baloo and King Louie are due just as much to the talents of their voice actors as to the animators who drew them. Many of Disney's subsequent films have continued the tradition of using famous actors for just this reason. The music used in this film was also a notable change for Disney. While the music in previous films had been very much in the Broadway or Tin Pan Alley style, this film incorporated jazz into the soundtrack . The inclusion of Harris and Prima in the film helped this along immensely, as did the songwriting talents of Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman (" I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)") and Terry Gilkyson (" The Bare Necessities "). The other songs in the film were all written by the frequent Disney songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman, including " Col. Hathi's March (The Elephant Song) ." The Jungle Book was also the first Disney Animated Feature to have an animated TV series as a spin-off . Actually, it's had two (also a rare feat)! First was TaleSpin .

When this series debuted, it inaugurate d the Disney Afternoon along with the already-established cartoons DuckTales , Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers , and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears . TaleSpin took Baloo, Louie, and Shere Khan and placed them into the city of Cape Suzette , which was basically a 1940s adventure novel come to life. As in DuckTales, there are no humans in the world of TaleSpin; the various jungle animals take the place of humans in a recognizably human society . It's a very good cartoon , even if the continuity is entirely separate from that of the movie . The second and more recent of the TV spin-offs was Jungle Cubs , a Muppet Babies -style prequel to the movie. That is, the characters from the movie (except Mowgli , of course) were regress ed to children , with the plots claiming that they all knew each other way back when . This time, all the main animals from the movie showed up, including Shere Khan and Kaa. Oddly, only Shere Khan held any animosity toward the others at this young age.

"Prince" Louie was good friends with Baloo (they both have a fun-loving nature, after all), and Kaa was just one of the group as well. But even Shere Khan was willing to join in their adventure s from time to time. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Song (" The Bare Necessities ", Terry Gilkyson). Although perhaps not the best of the Disney Animated Features , The Jungle Book is certainly one of the most entertaining. It was also groundbreaking in its use of new ideas (i.e., use of popular actors and singers as voice talent and use of popular styles of music). Entertainment and innovation were always Walt Disney 's strengths, which means this, his last film, serves as a wholly fitting epitaph . Information for the Disney Animated Features series of nodes comes from the IMDb ( Frank's Disney Page (~fp/Disney/), and the dark recesses of my own memory . Update: 5 February 2003 : Like Peter Pan before it, The Jungle Book has been graced with a theatrical sequel created by Disney's Television Animation division.

Entitled The Jungle Book 2 , the sequel is set just a few days after the end of the first movie, as Mowgli and Baloo discover they miss each other, and Shere Khan longs for revenge. John Goodman voices Baloo, and Haley Joel Osment voices Mowgli. The sequel premieres on Valentine's Day, 2003 . Mowgli's Brothers Where we first meet Mowgli and the others in that universe, and Bagheera buys Mowgli's life with that of a bull . Eleven years pass, and then the adventure continues, and Mowgli gets the better of Sher Khan again, using the red flower . At the end, he is sent back to the lands of man. Maxims of Baloo Before Mowgli was sent back to the lands of man, Baloo was teaching him the Law of the Jungle . Most jungle creatures only learned the parts that applied directly to themselves, but Mowgli had to learn everything , including how to say " We be of one blood, ye and I " in all the languages of the jungle. Then he falls in with the Bandar-Log who are the people without a law (the swing dancing monkeys from the Disney movie).

The Bandar-Log capture Mowgli, who is then rescued by Kaa , Bagheera and Baloo . Tiger! Tiger! Beginning just after the first story, Mowgli goes back to the man village . He is adopted by a woman who lost her own son to the jungle . He learns man's speech and customs. Mowgli is put to work herding cattle , and uses the herd to defeat Sher Khan . He is thrown out of the Man-Pack and returns to live in the jungle. Fairly long verse, retelling the victory of Mowgli over Sher Khan . From here forward, the stories are no longer in the Mowgli universe. The jungle book Written by a member of the 19th century British imperial elite , this series of short stories examines how the actions of humans affect the natural order among the animals. Almost every story has both animals and humans in it and Kipling describes their many and varied interactions. Many of the stories, though not all, are set in India .

Although written towards the end of the 19th century, the stories are timeless, being predominantly about how the animal world behaves in the presence of humans, and how humans consistently corrupt the natural order through greed , fear and ignorance . This encourages us, the readers, to think how our actions affect those around us. Most obviously, we are encouraged to think how we affect the animals in our lives. In Victorian England , that meant dog s and horse s. Nowadays, perhaps, it means gerbil s and hamster s and cat s. By extension, Kipling suggests we also affect the lives of other people around us. To put a concrete example on it, when we, with the best will in the world, try to help a distressed animal, the effects often backfire and make life more difficult for that animal. One suspects that Kipling is writing about how we interact with our fellow humans; indicating that even though we act from the best of intentions , the results are what matter, and if by our well-intended actions, we end up causing pain and anguish, perhaps it would have been better not to have acted at all.

Even though that may seem cruel, he seems to suggest, the kindest course of action might be to let nature take it's course. Victorian chauvinism Kipling is an odd combination. Part of the British establishment in India , he was educated among the elite military students of the day, but poor health prevented him from taking up a career in the Army. Kipling wrote these stories in the USA, in Vermont just a few years after the civil war there. He won the 1907 Nobel prize for literature, but declined all the honours Britain wanted to throw at him: the order of merit ; the Poet Laureate and others. His only son was killed, in 1915, as a soldier in the 1914-18 war . Some of Kipling's books, read in today's climate , appear imperialist ic and racist , declaring the white man naturally superior to every other type of life. While such crass attitudes might detract from his other messages, I do not feel we should ignore Kipling just because of his Imperialistic viewpoint.

These stories were written towards the end of the 19th century , as Victorian Britain was at the peak of Imperial power, with India becoming subjugated to British rule, and shipping its wealth back to London's high society . The stories bring with them the natural sense of superiority which educated English men of that time took for granted. At the end of the 19th century, any other position would have appeared inconceivable to the white, educated Englanders who read the stories. Nevertheless, remember that Kipling had chosen to live abroad, not in the land of his birth; not in his fatherland, but in the upstart, and unstable, United States . The man was no automaton, thoughtlessly following the fashions of the day. The man was to win the first Nobel Prize for Literature ever awarded to an Englishman. The man wanted to make a point. More than a boy scout code There are few reviews or analyses around of Kipling's Jungle books. What reviews there are talk about the characterisation of the animals and the lessons they teach about loyalty , courage and friendship.

Lord Baden-Powell , founder of the Boy Scout movement took these ideals of jungle law and friendship, and built a whole code of conduct around them. I can see the attraction of that interpretation, but I do not read the stories that way. You can look at the books at any level. At the most superficial level, the books are slightly anachronistic , but innocent portrayals of English superiority over the natives and humanity's superiority over animals and the rest of the world. At a slightly deeper level, the stories celebrate nature and how she is red in tooth and claw , sparing us few details of the the natural order of killing and eating, but giving us a natural history lesson from a first-hand observer of jungle life. My own interpretation is that the books have deeper meanings still. Many amateur reviewers have puzzled about how the later stories fit with the early, wonderful adventures of Mowgli in the forest, raised by wolves and making friends with bears and panthers . The later stories tell us how an orphaned mongoose kills some cobras and describes a seal prophet persuading his flock to find nirvana and English cavalry horses exchanging notes with their Afghan equivalents. Early Gaia apologist?

I see these later stories as early treatises on how man upsets the balance of nature by interfering with his environment. In the early stories about Mowgli, Kipling establishes the natural order. He sets out the laws of the jungle and shows why and how those rules grew up, with specific examples to spell them out. He also shows us briefly, what happens to creatures who transgress those rules. The later stories use these established rules to show us how man's increasing remoteness from jungle life makes it more and more difficult to follow the laws of the jungle, and leads us into conflict with life's natural laws. In the early jungle stories about Mowgli and his friends, Kipling introduces us to the jungle and its laws. We meet many of the jungle animals, and Kipling gives them characters to suit their real-life characteristics. While this may appear anthropomorphic , it is not cloyingly so. The characters Kipling assigns to the various creatures reflect their styles of living and killing. The chief baddie in the Mowgli stories, Shere Khan , is a cowardly tiger with a lame foot.

Shere Khan starts attacking men, in violation of one of Kipling's prime jungle laws, and so turns himself into an outcaste. Describing Shere Khan, Kipling does not go all mushy on us, pretending that tigers are over-sized cuddly pussy cats with pretty stripes; he celebrates their power and terror in all it's blood-soaked, bone-crushing glory. Everything in the jungle is afraid of the tiger. Only Hathi the wild elephant and Mowgli, the naturally-superior man-spirit, can face up to Shere Khan. Deathmatch: Mowgli and Shere Khan Mowgli, initially at least, is a baby, but a human baby. In Kipling's world, the mere fact of being human makes him naturally superior to the animals. Mowgli is raised by wolves but while still a boy, he forms a fast friendship with Bagheera , the panther. This is not a friendship of equals. Mowgli is the unquestioned leader. Bagheera and all the other animals pay tribute to his human nature by protecting him and doing his bidding, provided he remains sympathetic to the laws of the jungle.

Bagheera is a full-grown, silky black panther in the prime of his life. He could kill Mowgli with a single, lazy swipe of a paw, but he cannot look Mowgli in the eye. Heck, even Shere Khan cannot hold 10-year-old Mowgli's gaze. "Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how, and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this, and Man-cub that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!" The way I see it, the stories about Mowgli are there to show the natural balance of nature , with the predators attacking and eating prey only when their bellies are empty and they have young to feed. Mowgli lives with wolves , bears and panthers , all predators at the top of the food chain. The stories describe a harsh society in which killing is a real present part of life. For a predator, life depends on killing and eating its prey.

In Kipling's jungle, however, there is a code to killing, and those who break the code are outcaste . Killing for mere sport is despised as pointless and wasteful. There is no killing at the depleted water hole when drought parches the forest, for that breaks the rule of the jungle. Kipling gives us Hathi the elephant, long-lived, wise and physically stronger than any other creature. Hathi is the guardian of the jungle law, remembering past droughts and floods and dictating to the other flesh-eaters how and where they may attack their prey. When Shere Khan attacks a man for choice , and chases the baby Mowgli into the jungle, Kipling shows how the animals react to his kill. "I killed for choice--not for food." The horrified whisper began again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked itself in Shere Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan drawled. "Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is there any to forbid?" No-one forbids, but we see from the reaction of the other animals that Shere Khan has broken three of the jungle's most sacred laws.

First, you do not kill a man, (except to show a cub how to kill). Second you only kill for food; and third, when you do kill, you do not wash the blood and gore in a communal watering hole , making it unclean for other animals who want to drink. Kipling tells us that even the biggest, most powerful predator has some responsibility to the other animals and the well-being of the community. My take on that is that humanity is the Shere Khan of the books and humanity has a responsibility to live by natural laws, as well as those which we might ourselves construct. Humanity is going wrong when it breaks the natural laws and Humanity will have to face the consequences of its actions . Taking the analogy a step further, Mowgli becomes the spirit of mankind, noble, strong, in tune with both the human world and the animal world. It is a common technique among authors (Think of Brave new World , or Tarzan ), to introduce a noble savage who sees modern society for what it really is , rather than how we like to think of ourselves. Authors can use this device to comment on the ills of society through a seemingly innocent channel.

Through a series of apparently simple tales, Kipling shows us how nature lives; how the animals live together and highlights how man's behaviour is different from that of the animals. To his Imperialist audience, with their prejudiced sense of superiority, that would ring true. Looking at it the same work through modern eyes, however, we can see that Kipling was setting out a warning that behaviour grossly in opposition to the laws of nature will bring harm on the perpetrator. Humanity, by killing for sport, burning the jungle and fighting over trivialities, will eventually reap the rewards of transgressing the natural law . Not just the Mowgli stories I think the later stories do form a natural integration with the early Mowgli stories, because in those later stories, Kipling takes the laws of the jungle as given, and show us how man's actions contravene those laws, and some of the effects of such behaviour. In my favourite story, Rikki-tikki-tavi , the mongoose is saved from death by a young English family. Rikki-tikki then kills Nag, the local black cobra, incidentally saving the life of their young daughter.

In their gratitude and ignorance , the English couple offer the animal all sorts of delicacies which, if eaten, would make him too slow to hunt other snakes. Fortunately, Rikki-tikki is too clever to fall victim to their temptation, and remains hungry and alert, true to jungle law . When the snake's mate, Nagaini, threatens the baby daughter by way of revenge , Rikki is clever and sharp enough to run into her nest and kill each of her eggs, bringing the last egg out preparing to bite the top off it in front of her. This brings Nagaini slithering away from the girl to rescue the last egg. He kills Nagaini deep in her own territory, and then bites the last egg. Only then does Rikki accept his reward from the grateful, but ignorant humans . In another story, the fur seals are being slaughtered to oblivion by men in hunting boats, and a prophet-saviour emerges to bring them to sanctuary , out of the reach of man. The only men to appear directly in the story are two superstitious seal hunters who drive hundreds of young seals to the killing ground. That's barely even a metaphor.

The whole message is that men are hunting animals to extinction against the laws of the jungle; against the balance of nature. Far from reinforcing the White-men-are-always-right mentality, Kipling is questioning the behaviour of his fellow men at a time when few others had any thought or concern for the environment . The common view at the time was that natural resources were there for the taking and all but inexhaustable. If this interpretation stands, then The Jungle book has to be re-appraised as a brave and prescient piece of environmentalist work, rather than a shallow, yet endearing piece of childrens' writing. Perhaps it is no bad thing that the Boy Scouts movement took its core values from the book.

Question: Which famous film actor, singer, music composer and author provided the voice of Shere Khan the tiger in the 1967 Disney animated film The Jungle Book ?
Answer: GEORGE SANDERS