You always here the story or the expression that you can't take wild animals and try to them into pets. This movie tells and shows you why. The movie is based on a true story from a book by Joy Adamson. The movie is set back in the 1950 era when George Adamson who is the game warden for the Kenya area in Africa. While out on a routine run George has to kill a charging female lion in self defense. After George kills the lion he discovers that the lion was a mother as three lion cubs come out of no where. George takes the 3 cub's home because he knows that if he didn't the cubs will die. When the cubs get too much to handle they have to make the hardest decision of their life. Do they send the animals to the Rotterdam Zoo? Do they send all the cubs or do they keep one? To me the acting was great as Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna play George and Joy Adamson. As a side note McKenna also narrates the story as Joy voice-over, using the book. The real star of the show, though, is Elsa herself, actually played by three different lionesses. You can really see the genuine affection between the large cat and her caretakers as they interact. It is magical to watch. This movie would be great for you and your family because there's none of the following in this picture. There's really no violence, and there's no sex or any swearing for that matter. The entire movie was shot in Africa. If you can get the DVD the picture quality is as good as a movie that you would buy today. This review is based on my home addition of Born Free on DVD. You can get this DVD right here on Amazon.com and it by far better then the current VHS that's out there now.

"Born Free," is an absolute wonderful film. It's beautiful, about a couple who take care of a lion cub whom they love and nurture and name Elsa. She is smart and they love her like a child. But also they want her to be free and never to be put in a zoo. It's a very emotional and moving film. I'd give it ten stars it certainlty desrves it. It's a true story based on a book. Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, real life husband and wife portray a married couple in the movie too. They are wonderful actors first rate. They make the performance moving, sad, and happy. They capture all the moments. Elsa is also a star in the movie. She's very sweet and a gentle lion who doesn't hurt anyone, because she's been raised since a cub by humens. The tile song alone adds much more emotion too the film and helps tell the story and tell it's theme. It's a beautiful and inspiring song. I'd highly recommend this film to anyone. There are some flaws too from the time period it was made and the wrong and unfair treatment of Africans as servents.
But the rest of the film is good and the scenery in Kenya is breathtakingly beautiful.

This movie won the 1966 Academy Awards for song and best score shared by John Barry and Don Black which is sung by Frank Sinatra; I'm surprised it didn't win more awards than it did because this is my all time favorite movie! I saw this with my parents a few years after it came out in 1965; I cry every time, love everything about this picture. Love the lions!!! Especially Elsa who hung around until the local government got tired of her antics. The maturing Elsa begins to attract wild male lions and pretty soon, it becomes all too clear it's either the zoo or the African savannah. She came to the Adamson's East African residence when she was a little cub, her parents shot and killed by her soon to be foster father, George Adamson, the game warden for the area. Getting Elsa to adjust back to life in the wild is no easy matter and is the major part of the story.

The Adamsons in the movie, Travers and McKenna, were married in real life. I think Virginia McKenna's performance really made this movie. It looks like she didn't make tons of movies but has always been admired for her performances in the ones she did, sometimes winning nominations for them. For years after making the movie, she and her husband became active in conservation issues establishing the Born Free Foundation with their oldest son in 1991. She's also written a few books on the subject. The story is true and follows very closely the book written by the real Joy Adamson. Not even cursing is found in this movie!

Without bombs, bullet, swear words, light sabers, bathroom humor, or any special effects, this managed to hold a wide age range group's attention. Other reviewers have commented a lot about the VHS movie, so let me confine my remarks to the DVD.

Actually, as DVDs go, this is not so great. The movie makes you very curious about a lot of things: how in the heck did they train the animals to make all their moves for the camera? how true to life is the story? and so on. The DVD, by virtue of totally lacking extras, utterly fails to answer any of those questions. The picture has that of-an-era very colorful and yet simultaneously slightly washed out look that begs, nay screams, for some kind of color correction. And the sound clearly has effects of tape compression or something; it is not very open (I listened in stereo, and don't know if there is a 5.1 track).

If you're looking for a reference DVD with gorgeous cinematography of African scenes, this isn't it (due to the color imbalance)l. I give it 5 stars anyway simply because the movie is so well made.

Based on a true story, as told by Joy Adamson in her book of the same title, this 1966 film remains compelling today. The movie follows the adventure of a British couple, game warden George Adamson and his wife (Joy, author of the book), living in Kenya in the 1950s, who become surrogate parents for a litter of three orphaned lion cubs. When the mother is shot in self-defense, the Adamsons bring the cubs into their home, planning to turn them over to the Rotterdam Zoo as soon as the zoo is ready to receive them. However, Joy forms a strong bond with the smallest of the cubs, whom she names Elsa, and ultimately cannot bear to part with her. So while Elsa's siblings eventually depart for the zoo, Elsa herself stays with the Adamsons. At first all goes well, but as Elsa grows into a mature lioness, it quickly becomes apparent that she cannot remain with her human family. And so, rather than send Elsa to a zoo and subject her to life in a cage, Joy is determined to do something no one has ever done successfully before - teach a tame lion to survive in the wild, and ultimately set her free.

The acting is good, with real-life couple Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna playing George and Joy Adamson (McKenna also narrates the story as Joy via voice-over, pulling passages from the book). There are a few places where the dialogue seems slightly forced, but for the most part it is very sincere. The real star of the show, though, is Elsa herself, actually played by three different lionesses. You can really see the genuine affection between the large cat and her caretakers as they interact. It is magical to watch.

"Born Free" relies on none of the modern-day tactics for holding an audience's attention. There is very little violence of any sort, no gore, no explosions, no sweeping romance, no sex, and as far as I could tell, not even a single swear word. The only fight scene is one between two lions, and the only chases are lions going after prey. Yet the movie maintains the ability to captivate a viewer entirely. It may hold the highest appeal for children, but animal-loving adults are sure to love it, too. I first saw this movie as a kid, but when I recently re-watched it after many years I was happy to find that it remained thoroughly enjoyable. I would warn, though, that very small children may possibly be frightened by the lion attack scene at the very beginning. The attack itself is now shown, but the lion's leap and the victim's scream are. I remember being a little unnerved by this part when I was little, so if you have a very young child, it may be best to watch this scene yourself first to determine whether it's likely to bother them.

The one thing that worries me a bit about this story is the fact that the Adamsons actually used gunshots to call Elsa to them. Even at the end of the film, Elsa still displays no fear of either guns or humans. Such a lack of fear can be quite very detrimental to a wild animal, particularly in an area where lions are often shot to protect livestock. I don't fault the makers of the movie at all, since this is based on events as they really happened and the movie couldn't have been filmed differently without altering the story, but it's still a little worrisome.

The entire movie was filmed on location in Kenya, and the scenery is gorgeous. Unfortunately, the picture quality is not as crisp as you would see in movies made today. However, it is full color and still quite decent. The sound quality is slightly disappointing. It is occasionally difficult to make out what is being said, but turning up the volume enough to hear the dialogue clearly in turn makes the music a little too loud for comfort. I have no idea if either the picture quality or the sound have been touched up at all in the DVD version, as I only own the VHS, but neither is enough of a problem to interfere with the enjoyment of the movie, and one can easily forgive these things in a movie made nearly four decades ago. On the whole, this is a terrific family film and is just as touching and fun as it must have been when it first came out. And if you're the type that gets a kick out of watching your cats watch TV, this one has the potential to catch their interest as well, as it did mine.