Wandering Free
"An Elephant Called Slowly" is an utterly curious and utterly delightful even eccentric movie made from 1970 which paired up husband and wife team Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna in another soiree into African wildlife. But before you get excited at the thought of another "Born Free" style movie this has different feel about it as Bill & Virginia are basically playing themselves or at least two actors called Bill and Ginny who are asked by a friend to go to Africa to look after his home whilst he is away. Not only that as "An Elephant Called Slowly" is more of a comedy with lots of old fashioned gags dispersed between shots of wildlife especially elephants.
Now the sensible side of my brain, the critical side says this isn't very good and has an element of feeling forced as it doesn't have a lot of storyline. Not only that the various comical asides are often quite corny as are many of the set ups such as when they arrive and find themselves with an old wreck of a jeep which over heats.
But if like me you love "Born Free" and the pairing of Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers then "An Elephant Called Slowly" is a charming bit of fun which harks back to more innocent times. Now it does take a bit of time to get use to Virginia and Bill basically playing themselves but they have such a relaxed style about them and to be honest in the case of McKenna looks stunning. But once you do the fun of them doing a bit of fish out of water comedy whilst watching wild life is a lot of fun especially when combined with a sweet, easy listening soundtrack.
Plus there is all the wildlife footage which at times suffers from the forced editing to make funny or forced narration to tell us about wild animals. But there is plenty of wildlife footage especially of the elephants which is simply adorable and it is the elephants who are the stars of this movie.
What this all boils down to is that whilst "An Elephant Called Slowly" is the third movie with Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna doing the wildlife thing it isn't up to the standard of either of the previous two. But if you enjoyed watching "Born Free" you might just enjoy this as well because it has Bill & Virginia plus plenty of wildlife footage.
