Königin der Wildnis

This really is a wonderful movie - a true story; funny, dramatic, bittersweet, and with a title song that will never be forgotten by anyone who hears it.

Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers star as Joy and George Adamson. He is the game warden in a game reserve in northern Kenya; she is his wife, and together they adopt three orphaned lion cubs. Sending two of them to zoos, the third (Elsa, who was the darling of the bunch) stays behind and becomes something of a household pet, until the inevitable day comes when she has to be either taught to live in the wild on her own, or sent to a zoo.

You find yourself rooting for Elsa, shedding a few tears with Joy and in the end feeling quite uplifted by how the whole thing turns out. It's a fast movie (about an hour and a half in length) which is good, the editing I thought was a bit rough (although there are some great shots of Africa and its wild life) and in the end it's a great feel-good movie for the whole family.

8/10

"Born Free" (1965) is a great film for animal lovers, especially cat lovers. It tells the story of a couple living in Africa who come across three orphan lion cubs and keep one female, whom they name Elsa. Later they are pressured to give Elsa up to a zoo, but the woman can't because, as she argues, Elsa was born free and should therefore live free. She'd never be happy in a zoo.

Unfortunately, Elsa has become too tame as a result of living with the couple. Can Elsa ever adapt to the wild or will she be condemned to a cage in a zoo?

The footage of Elsa with the couple is amazing. She's like their pet cat! I'd love to have a lioness pet to hug and pat and walk around the yard with!

Shot in beautiful Kenya, the film runs 95 minutes.

GRADE: B+

It's really hard now days to get the same feelings that this film brings to your soul, innocence, love, devotion, honesty. It's all rare commodities in the today's life in general. It's really hard now days to get the same feelings that this film brings to your soul, innocence, love, devotion, honesty. It's all rare commodities in the today's life in general. Virginia McKenna & Bill Travers are the perfect couples.

The film brings you the atmosphere of the great African wildlife on its last glorious days; I and my family enjoyed this film very much. It was a wonderful experience for my kids its represent the animal in a realistic and compassionate way not like the cg cartoons or other comic animal films of todays.

1st watched 9/4/2007 - 7 out of 10(Dir-James Hill): Fascinating study of lioness born free, but domesticated; then being trained to survive again in the wild. This is a unique film in that it deals with some real issues about making a wild animal a pet and the effect on it because of that. The movie begins with an African game warden, played by Bill Travers, killing an adult lion that is attacking humans but leaves behind three pups. The game warden and his wife, played by Virginia McKenna, decide to take in the pups since they lost their parents and would eventually starve to death in the wild. They are finally able to get them to feed off of their homemade formula and grow, but when it comes time to release them back to the wild the wife's attachment to the smallest that she named Elsa, has grown and they decide to keep her. Elsa quickly becomes their pet and attaches herself to them, but they know eventually she'll have to leave. They avoid the issue of sending her to a zoo because they want Elsa to be free, but then they must take on the challenge of re-training her for the wild. This turns out to be harder than they expected and their trials with this becomes the subject of the rest of the movie. This is all very well done and helps us realize the difference between pets and animals living in the wild and shows us the respect we should have of the differences. There is a good balance of sentimentality with reality as this couple thinks hard about every decision it makes thinking not just for themselves but for Elsa. This a unique movie that can be enjoyed by persons of all ages and also teaches us some things that we rarely see on film.

You always here the story or the expression that you can't take wild animals and try to them into pets. This movie tells and shows you why. The movie is based on a true story from a book by Joy Adamson. The movie is set back in the 1950 era when George Adamson who is the game warden for the Kenya area in Africa. While out on a routine run George has to kill a charging female lion in self defense. After George kills the lion he discovers that the lion was a mother as three lion cubs come out of no where. George takes the 3 cub's home because he knows that if he didn't the cubs will die. When the cubs get too much to handle they have to make the hardest decision of their life. Do they send the animals to the Rotterdam Zoo? Do they send all the cubs or do they keep one? To me the acting was great as Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna play George and Joy Adamson. As a side note McKenna also narrates the story as Joy voice-over, using the book. The real star of the show, though, is Elsa herself, actually played by three different lionesses. You can really see the genuine affection between the large cat and her caretakers as they interact. It is magical to watch. This movie would be great for you and your family because there's none of the following in this picture. There's really no violence, and there's no sex or any swearing for that matter. The entire movie was shot in Africa. If you can get the DVD the picture quality is as good as a movie that you would buy today. This review is based on my home addition of Born Free on DVD. You can get this DVD right here on Amazon.com and it by far better then the current VHS that's out there now. Based on the scenery alone I give this movie 7 weasel stars.