Lion (1962) US Insert Poster
With two friends, William Holden had just bought the Mount Kenya Safari Club in 1960, so a chance to make a film 'just down the road' was irresistable. Plus keeping the cast and crew at the Club helped give it a kick start. Fresh off The Innocents, (1961), Pamela Franklin spent some months pre-filming, bonding with Zamba the Lion, and performing wrestling scenes with him fearlessly. The naturalness of their relationship is the core of the film, rather than the expected love triangle between ill-fated Capucine, Holden and a superbly gruff Trevor Howard.
It looks superb, as befitting direction by acclaimed former Lighting Camerman Jack Cardiff, whose colour work on Powell and Pressberger's A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948) was legendary. Keeping it in the family, he promoted his camera operator on Black Narcissus and The African Queen (1951), Ted Scaife, to light it. Co-screenwriter Irene Kamp, as Grimes Grice also wrote The Beguiled (1971) and The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972).
Aka: for some unfathomable reason, known as Patricia und der Löwe in West Germany, despite there being no such character.
Condition: POOR - Bottom right corner paper loss, tear right hand edge, surface paper loss top left and right edge and bottom edge (tape removal).