Own the rights?
I'm not sure why Mark Lester is listed in the cast as though he had a bit part, because he is the star. The IMDB information does not list the studio, but I think if it's not Disney it is an adaptation that he could have made-- considerably prettified and sugar-coated compared to Julilly Kohler's novel. But I won't complain, because it works. A modification is required right off to explain how a clearly English boy comes to be a runaway waif in the middle of the late 19th-century U.S. Further, in the novel Catfish Williams, his boss, is a brutal drunkard, an incompetent circus manager, and an all-around S.O.B. In the film, he is a lovable avuncular sort with one Achilles heel: a weakness for gambling. The film casts the owner of the circus that owns the elephant as a dashing woman with a long-standing soft place in her heart, maybe even a romantic interest, in old Catfish.Kohler, a member of the family of plumbing-appliance magnates in Wisconsin, whose company underwent a famous worker's strike around the 1950s, is not particularly famous as a children's author, but I think that my father once met her at a writer's conference and brought this book of hers home to me as a small child. I've always liked it, and so have other children to whom I have introduced it. The film is a nice honor to her work, even if it was changed in some respects. If you enjoy the film, try to read it.
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