Word: elsa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Born Free is a posthumous triumph for Elsa the lioness, one of the queen beasts of her time and now the subject of a lively movie biography that should leave audiences purring with satisfaction. Heroine of two bestsellers by Joy Adamson, wife of a senior game warden in Kenya, Elsa began her well-documented career as an orphan cub, became a 300-lb. lapful of love and affection, but ultimately returned to her wild, natural way of life. The clincher of this zoological success story is that Elsa, once taught by her human protectors how to stalk and kill, remained...
Made on location in Kenya, Born Free glows with dusty golden beauty, the lion's share of it supplied by the big cats themselves. Two portray Elsa as a young adult, their identities smoothly meshed in the part, while 17 others maul major and minor roles, tearing down clotheslines, chewing seat cushions or carcasses, chasing elephants, or scaring the district commissioner (Geoffrey Keen) into fits of quietly civilized panic. The Adamsons are played by a British husband-and-wife team, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who perform with a conviction that nearly matches their courage among lions. The result...
...toilsome chore of untaming their pampered playmate gives the movie tension, much of it spelled out in pictures more than equal to the rich lion lore contained in the book. In one sequence, an embarrassed Elsa is bullied by a small wart hog, and still cannot understand that she will soon have to kill in order to survive. Later, she lies yawning atop the Land Rover, unmoved by a young bachelor lion laying under a tree. Before Elsa mates successfully, reports the surrogate Mrs. Adamson, "we suffered all the agony of parents whose teen-age daughter...
...Chanel showing it is de rigueur for spectators to wear their own little Chanel suits out of loyalty to Coco. But no one told Barbra; she swept in to take her place beside Marlene Dietrich and Elsa Martinelli in a jaguar-skin suit and Homburg that had even the models gawking. How did she like the show? "Those girls at Cardin's," said the girl from Brooklyn, "they didn't have a thing under their dresses. I was embarrassed." And Paris haul couture? Barbra politely demurred: "Nice, but not for me." Privately, she declared: "It stinks...
...felines. He sneezes a lot as D.C. leads everyone a hairy chase over fences, under bushes, and through one hilarious mixup at 'a drive-in movie, cleverly avoiding the crooks' hideout until the very last reel. Meanwhile, eccentric comedy bits are supplied by Roddy McDowall, Ed Wynn, Elsa Lanchester and gravel-throated Iris Adrian...