The Boy Who Stole the Elephant (1970) (TV)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Michael Caffey

Release Date:

20 September 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Family | Comedy

Plot:

A boy working in a struggling circus troupe develops a great rapport with an elephant on loan from a more successful circus...

Plot Keywords:

Elephant | Circus | Animal | Kids And Family

Cast

David Wayne	...	Colonel Rufus Ryder
June Havoc	...	Molly Jeffrys
Dabbs Greer	...	Stilts
Parley Baer	...	Mayor Hancock
Whitney Blake	...	Helen Owens
James Westerfield	...	Sheriff Berry
Robert Emhardt	...	Cy Brown
Tom Drake	...	Mr. Corbert
Betty Lynn	...	Lottie Ladare
Doris Singleton	...	Lizzie Ladare
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Richard Kiel	...	Luke Brown
Mark Lester	...	Davey

Runtime:

USA:120 min (including commercials)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Company:

Walt Disney Productions

Delightful variant on the book

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.