Misplaced Pages

An Elephant Called Slowly

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
1969 British film
An Elephant Called Slowly
Directed byJames Hill
Written byBill Travers
James Hill
Produced byBill Travers
James Hill
StarringVirginia McKenna
Bill Travers
Production
company		Morning Star Productions
Distributed byBritish Lion (UK)
Release date
  • 1969 (1969)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

An Elephant Called Slowly is a 1969 British film from the team that made Born Free. It starred the elephant Pole Pole. The film was shot on location in Kenya.

Premise

The film showcased the adventures of the couple, Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, with three African elephants at Tsavo National Park.

Pole Pole, The Elephant

Pole Pole was a young elephant that had been captured as an orphan, from the wild and was being temporarily held in Nairobi before a relocation to UK. It was one of the three elephants used in the film, An Elephant Called Slowly.

Once production of the film ended, Pole Pole, the two year old elephant, was donated by the Government of Kenya as a gift to the Queen. This was despite efforts by the couple to save it from the relocation to a zoo in London. In UK it was to be held in an enclosed environment, unlike in Kenya, where it roamed freely in the wild.

The elephant later on died, years later, at Regent Zoo in London, while in the process of being transferred to a different facility, Whipsnade Zoo. Its death led to the foundation, Born Free, being created by the Late Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna to look after the welfare of animals, including elephants.

Cast

References

  1. "Grimsby Films". Grimsby Evening Telegraph. 27 December 1969. p. 5.
  2. McKenna, Virginia (2010). The life in my years. p. 27-32.
  3. Adamson, George (1987). My pride and joy. Simon and Schuster. p. 289.
  4. ^ "McKenna: My love affair with lions". Nation. 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  5. Crisp, Savannah (2021-07-24). "If Not For a Baby Elephant: How a Wildlife Charity, The Born Free Foundation, Was Born". Elephant Spoken Here. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  6. "Virginia McKenna and Born Free: How tragedy transformed our zoos". The Telegraph. 2013-10-14. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  7. "Pole Pole". Elephant Gin. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  8. "Born Free: the tragic story of Pole Pole the elephant who died in captivity in London 40 years ago today". EU Today. 2023-10-17. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  9. "London Zoo officials said Tuesday they had to kill... - UPI Archives". UPI. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  10. "Meet Virginia McKenna". www.sanctuarynaturefoundation.org. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  11. "Remembering pole pole". Born Free. 2021-10-16. Retrieved 2024-12-03.

External links

Films directed by James Hill
Stub icon

This article related to a British film of the 1960s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories: