Bill Travers – The Magnificent 60s

Born Free (1966) ***

Unusual mix of the sentimental and the unsentimental, mixing soft-centered animal features like That Darn Cat (1966) where cute beasts cause mayhem with the kind of realism espoused by Sir David Attenborough (Planet Earth, 2006) where nature is red in tooth and claw, though skipping the irony of game warden-cum-conservationist George Adamson (Bill Travers) bringing up the cubs of the leonine parents he has shot dead.

With wife Joy (Virginia McKenna) they decide to rear the baby animals. Joy is most attracted to the runt of the litter, Elsa. Cue much hilarity as the animals destroy their house, knocking over anything standing, pulling down curtains, breaking plates, and like any youngsters resisting bedtime. Joy is so distraught at having to get rid of the grown-up cubs, despatched to zoos, that her husband holds onto Elsa.

If Joy can’t face shipping the cub overseas, she’s unwilling to face up to the fact that the only other alternative is to groom her for a life in the wild. A tame animal let loose would hardly survive a minute. So they’ve got to train Elsa to hunt. This doesn’t work out, Elsa finding herself at the wrong end of the hunting business – attacked by a warthog – or too inexperienced to know not to go near a herd of wild elephants. When she crawls home nursing her wounds, George is on the verge of giving up, but Joy wishes to persevere, resulting in scenes of the cute Elsa now suddenly red in tooth and claw and savoring her kill.

Now, all that’s left is finding her a willing mate. When that’s achieved, it’s job done, though when Elsa returns for a visit she’s accompanied by her own cubs.

And if you’re occasionally bored by the cutesy elements and wish the movie would get a move on, you can always savor, as I did, the Oscar-winning music by John Barry. It’s what these days would be deemed a feel-good movie but that’s only if you wriggle out of the irony.

The problem for the big cats in Kenya was that they were prey to illicit big-game hunters and if that had been the reason for the cubs being orphaned it would be a better fit for the general theme. But, basically, what lions don’t seem to realize is that they can’t treat humans like any other prey. There’s some weird supposition that they can prefer the taste of human flesh, rather than the more obvious reason why humans are attractive being that, unless armed, they can neither run away nor defend themselves like all the other jungle occupants.

There’s an unspoken rule – to which the lions are obviously not privy – that if you get a reputation as a man-eater then that friendly game warden who’s otherwise on your side is going to come after you and shoot you dead. It would only be luck that your offspring might end up with a couple of friendly humans rather than as dinner for other predators.

So being “born free” comes with the proviso of not getting in the way of humans.

Real life couple Bill Travers (The Bridal Path, 1959) and Virginia McKenna (Carve Her Name with Pride, 1958) were considered well past their sell-by date, neither having made a picture in five years. But they seem to embody the characters well, McKenna’s acting recognized by the Golden Globes.

James Hill (A Study in Terror, 1965) directs from a screenplay by Lester Cole (Operation Eichmann, 1961), blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten, and Joy Adamson, author of the eponymous bestseller.

While you’re probably not as nit-picky as me, you might well figure this is well past its sell-by date or, equally, you might hail it as the precursor of an animal rights campaign.

Duel at Diablo (1966) ****

Action-packed and plot-jammed revisionist western with fresh performances from James Garner and Sidney Poitier caught up in an Apache uprising. Tough-as-teak ex-cavalry scout Garner has dispensed with his glib smart-aleck persona in favor of world-weariness and Poitier is a revelation as a cocky cigar-smoking ex-cavalry sergeant horse-dealer. Racism here concerns hostility towards Indian squaw Bibi Andersson (Persona, 1966), Garner, who had married a Commanche (now dead) the only one to treat her with any decency.

Returned to “civilization,” Andersson wants nothing more than to escape, back to her baby it transpires. Her crime is staying alive after Apache capture when she should have done the “decent thing” and killed herself rather than living as a squaw. But prejudice is leavened by husband Dennis Weaver (minus trademark moustache) who retains tender feelings towards her and, eventually, her baby. Apache chief John Hoyt is equally redeemed by his care towards the baby.

Director Ralph Nelson (Lilies of the Field, 1963) handles the action with aplomb but it is the Apaches who prove the masters of battlefield strategy, deftly maneuvering the cavalry into an ambush and cutting them to shreds. His biggest problem is delivering logical reasons for all the principals – Weaver is an arms dealer, Garner and Poitier no longer in the army – to join up with Bill Travers’ (Born Free, 1966) cavalry troop. However, rather than slowing the story down, the various complications add further tension.

Nelson never reins in reality. The cavalry are raw recruits, hardly able to control their mounts. Garner and Poitier don’t buddy-up, there is no camaraderie, and Andersson is an outcast in both worlds. And the good guys are constantly out-smarted by the Apaches, Poitier’s mistake leading to initial ambush, the Apaches targeting water supplies to derail the enemy and resorting to bow-and-arrow in case a stray bullet ignites the ammunition wagons. But it is still a duel, Poitier, Garner and Travers each in turn coming up with brilliant ideas to retrieve what looks like a desperate position trapped in a box canyon.

We might be more sympathetic towards the plight of the Apaches, shoved into a “hell-hole of a reservation,” had Nelson concentrated less on their brutality, the picture opening with the corpse of a mutilated man, the cavalry under siege at Diablo tortured by the screams in the night of a man being tortured, Andersson told that she will be buried alive. But when any Commanche woman can be killed and scalped just because she married a white man and Andersson viewed as fair game for rapists because she lived with Apaches, you can see how little regard the Native Americans have for their oppressors.

Garner and Poitier are superb and top marks for a rounded performance from John Hoyt, savage one minute, gentle the next. Scotsman Travers and Swede Andersson should have added to the authenticity since immigrants such as these provided the mass of settlers, but Travers seems quite out of place and Andersson never quite delivers the angst required of her situation. William Redfield (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975) can be spotted. Nelson has a cameo and if you look closely you will see a fleeting glimpse of Richard Farnsworth. Western specialist Marvin H. Albert (The Law and Jake Wade, 1958) co-wrote the screenplay from his novel.

You might be able to catch this for free on Sony Action Movies, but otherwise here’s a DVD link. You might get it on Amazon Prime but last time I posted a link for that, it didn’t work.