TV and Movies

[Oznell]

1:15 p.m. Eastern--  "Born Free"  Bill Travers, Virginia McKenna, "Elsa"

"Bo-oorn free--   as free as the wind blows/as free as the grass grows/ born free-eeee to follow your heart....."   (Who doesn't love that award-winning, swelling theme...)

Captivating British film, adaptation of Joy Adamson's book and real life adventure with the beloved lioness, "Elsa".   Kenya game warden hubby George (Bill Travers) is forced to kill Elsa's mother when she attacks him, so he brings home little Elsa to raise.  Joy (Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers' real life actress wife) is enchanted.  When it becomes painfully clear that the grown-up Elsa must either go to a zoo, or, (far more desirable) be re-acclimated to the wild, the couple have their work cut out for them...

Emotionally gripping, and with that hauntingly beautiful African landscape as a backdrop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1wpbCbPP7U

[Pearlee]

@Oznell  And one animal film I am definitely not watching on TCM tomorrow is The Yearling.  That and Old Yeller are two of the saddest films I've ever seen.  I  saw both of them as a child and to this day regret ever having watched either one of them, and I never did again.

[Oznell]

@Pearlee, I still have pangs about "Old Yaller"....

Oops, "Old Yeller", not "Yaller"!

[phoenixbrd]

I can't watch these films....my husband watches many of the David Attenbrough/Blue Planet nature films and has the remote ready if animals are becoming prey or suffering and I'm around....nothing needs to be said, he just switches the channel.

[Oznell]

That's my dilemma too, @phoenixbrd.  As one who must "save" every tiny beetle or spider that makes its way inside the house, I'm all that much more squeamish at big screen depictions of sometimes "tooth and nail" animal interactions.

I can watch if there's enough warning and I can look away at potentially hurtful scenes, but if the whole point is animal-on-animal or human-on-animal violence, it's a no-go for me...

[Wsmom]

Born Free and Old Yeller...I tear up just reading the titles...Can't watch them.

[Oznell]

Yeah, but at least in "Born Free", @Wsmom,

Spoiler

Elsa has a chance to successfully live in the wild, find a mate, and have little cubs of her own.  That's a win.  Her poor humans have a hard time with letting her go, understandably.  I'd be devastated, after raising her from a cub!