Living Free (1972)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Jack Couffer

Writers:

Joy Adamson (book)
Millard Kaufman (screenplay)

Release Date:

16 December 1972 (Sweden)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Family

Tagline:

Elsa the Lioness was BORN FREE...Now her cubs are LIVING FREE - DANGEROUSLY!

Plot:

When Elsa's three mischievious cubs begin wreaking havok on the nearby villages, Joy and her husband are forced to move them hundreds of miles to a game preserve. |

Plot Keywords:

Village | Game Preserve | Violence | Game Warden | Fire

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Nigel Davenport	...	George Adamson
Susan Hampshire	...	Joy Adamson
Geoffrey Keen	...	Kendall
Peter Lukoye	...	Nuru
Shane De Louvre	...	Makedde (as Shane De Louvres also)
Robert Beaumont	...	Billy Collins
Nobby Noble	...	Bank Manager
Allaudin Qureshi	...	Bank Clerk (as Aludin Quershi)
Charles Hayes	...	Herbert Baker
Jean Hayes	...	Mrs. Herbert Baker
Elsa	...	Herself
Jespah	...	Himself
Gopa	...	Herself
Little Elsa	...	Herself

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:U | USA:G

Filming Locations:

East Africa, Africa

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

'Bill Travers' and 'Virginia Mckenna' were asked to play the Adamsons again but declined.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Born Free: A New Adventure (1996) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Living Free

Forgotten and forgettable sequel

'Living Free' is one of those obscure sequels to huge hits that most people don't even know exist. In this case it's not hard to see why: it's pretty awful.

Susan Hampshire and Nigel Davenport make poor replacements for Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. While you wouldn't expect them to match the original couple's easy familiarity, these two don't look like they've even been introduced yet. Worse, the film is a clumsy mess, the first quarter a clumsy rehash of the first film mixing stock footage with awkward reshot word-for-word versions of scenes restaged by the new stars with all the confidence of a blindfolded kid with both legs tied together trying to hit a piñata (although you do get to see Geoffrey Keene play a scene absolutely identically to his performance with the more experienced stars a few years earlier). When the plot does get going in the last half hour there are some genuinely tense scenes as they attempt to cage Elsa the Lioness's cubs to take them to a new reserve before they are destroyed as a menace to local farms, but you'll probably have given up by then. It doesn't even have the benefit of Scope photography or a John Barry score to sugar the pill, often looking more like a poor TV pilot than a real film (and indeed a TV series did briefly follow, albeit with a new cast). Not good.