Lions d'Afrique

Original title: The African Lion

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Experience the thrill of the hunt and the heartwarming fun of a mother lion caring for her playful cubs as wildlife experts Elma Milotte and Alfred Milotte spend three years on the plains of... Read allExperience the thrill of the hunt and the heartwarming fun of a mother lion caring for her playful cubs as wildlife experts Elma Milotte and Alfred Milotte spend three years on the plains of Africa studying the king of beasts.Experience the thrill of the hunt and the heartwarming fun of a mother lion caring for her playful cubs as wildlife experts Elma Milotte and Alfred Milotte spend three years on the plains of Africa studying the king of beasts.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

638

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 3 wins total

Photos6

Top cast1

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Winston Hibler

Narrator

User reviews12

7.2638

Featured reviews

7RosanaBotafogo

Cool little...

The lion is a superb and lazy, the wild world of animals, sometimes it seems unfair, beautiful documentary, as only Disney could produce, in such tender years and with such a grandiose, passionate production, despite being the least interesting of what I've watched marathoning Disney natural documentaries...

7boblipton

More Than Lions

There are more than lions in this Disney True Life survey of the African veldt, where an Impala is the largest antelope, not the largest Chevrolet -- although I doubt we'll soon see a subcompact called dik-dik. It tells the story of the African year, running from birthing in the time of green grass, through daily life to the time of no water and a plague of locusts, until the rains come again. while surveying the variety of creatures on land, in the air and under the water.

Disney sent a camera crew under Alfred and Elma Milotte; it took them three years to take enough pictures for Disney's editors and story men to assemble into this movie. It's a fine piece of work, and look out for the rhinoceros trapped in the mud!

8runamokprods

Some wonderful wildlife photography, especially for its time.

Feature length documentary, part of Disney's True-Life Adventure series.

This was the best reviewed of the series – both at the time of it's release and in more recently reviews - and it really is quite good. While the music is over-the-top, and some of the narration is a bit Disney 'cute', a lot of the narration is really informative, and a lot of the wildlife photography is amazing, especially considering when it was done.

It's not really about Lions as much as the whole African world they lord over. There's some footage of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and a locust swarm that's flat out breathtaking.

NB: On the same disc is 'Bear Country', an Oscar winning 30 min short.

8SnoopyStyle

early Disney nature doc

It's an early Disney nature documentary as part of the award winning series True-Life Adventures. The opening text declares that this was three years in the making. This looks at the animals of the mysterious interior African lands. It starts at Mount Kilimanjaro. It's not only the Lions, the king of beasts. It's also giraffes, elephants, baboons, hippos, ostriches, wildebeests, and many other animals. The lions do return from time to time. It ends with a plague of locusts.

There is no denying the beauty of these animals and Disney is there to capture it. The cinematography is great especially considering the era. Nature docs don't take another giant leap until the days of HD. The most questionable narration is the little bird cleaning up the hippos. The narrator claims that it's pulling out hairs or eyelashes as beauty treatments but that may be done with tongue fully in cheek. The pictures are so beautiful and the nature is so epic. Any complaints are minor in comparison.

9clanciai

The drama of the wild life of Africa set to music

The amazing miracle about this film is not just the world of patience spent during three years to catch all these animals and their ways of life on film, not just the brilliant camera technique in approaching the animals to their intimacy, not just the broad universal scope of the presentation of African wild life, but above all to make the music illustrate it all with incredible precision of observation, timing and faithfulness, as if the animals did what they did conducted by the music. Paul Smith was applied in several Walt Disney films and always with more eloquent results than he was given any credit for. Walt Disney displayed a knack for this already in "Bambi", in which the music carefully follows the entire narrative with overwhelming faithfulness and precision, and the same miracle is presented here, like also in other documentaries of his like "The Living Desert". This is a quality in Walt Disney that is generally overlooked, his immense musicality and skill of applying it to his films, to make them wonders of experience both visually, mentally and musically.

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
After the scene where the rhino was stuck in the mud was shot, the filming team rescued the animal, but it charged at them after being freed.

Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: From ancient times, the great landmass of Africa has been called the dark continent. The name came from the early map makers. They knew so little of this unexplored region, they left it a blank on their charts. For centuries it remained a land of mystery, for Africa - like an ancient fortress - was surrounded by natural barriers that kept civilization out. Across the north, a vast desert: the impassible Sahara. On the west, a dense jungle; a wall of tangled underbrush along the Congo. In the south, an arid bush country. And on the eastern shore, fever ridden swamps became a barricade to all who would invade this land. In time of course, explorers penetrated nature's blockade; and in the dark heart of Africa, they found a primitive paradise. It was neither desert nor jungle, but a broad plain broken by forests, deep lakes, and towering peaks. The dominating landmark is the highest mountain on the continent. It stands practically on the equator. This is Mount Kilimanjaro, rising 19,000 feet into the African sky. Its crest - thrusting through the clouds - wears a permanent mantel of snow. Here in its shadow, our story begins, for this is the realm of the African lion.