General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Lion

The Lion is a 1962 American-British adventure drama film directed by Jack Cardiff, starring William Holden, Capucine, Trevor Howard, and Pamela Franklin, about an eleven-year-old girl raised on a Kenyan wildlife reserve whose closest companion is a full-grown lion¹^•². It was produced by 20th Century Fox from a screenplay by Irene and Louis Kamp based on the 1958 French novel Le Lion by Joseph Kessel³.

Key fact	Detail
Director / writers	Jack Cardiff; screenplay by Irene and Louis Kamp, from Joseph Kessel's 1958 novel Le Lion³^•⁴
Cast	William Holden (Robert Hayward), Capucine (Christine), Trevor Howard (John Bullit), Pamela Franklin (Tina), Zamba the lion (King)²
Filming	Photographed entirely in East Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda⁴^•³
Release	August 19, 1962 (United Kingdom); December 21, 1962 (United States)²^•⁵
Technical	96 minutes, color, CinemaScope, 2.35:1 aspect ratio²^•⁶
Box office	$2,620,000 gross in the United States and Canada²
Music and crew	Score composed and conducted by Malcolm Arnold; cinematography by Edward Scaife; editing by Russell Lloyd⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Divorced New York lawyer Robert Hayward (William Holden) is called to Kenya by his ex-wife Christine (Capucine) over concerns about their eleven-year-old daughter Tina (Pamela Franklin)⁸. Christine has remarried John Bullit (Trevor Howard), a former big-game hunter who now manages a large Kenyan animal preserve⁵.

Tina has grown up in the wilds of the reserve and roams the plains with her beloved lion companion King (played by Zamba the lion)⁸. Christine worries that growing up in remote Africa has had a detrimental effect on her willful, almost feral daughter, and she sends for Robert hoping he can guide Tina back to a civilized life³^•⁸. Tina has also formed a close bond with her stepfather John, who is as enmeshed in African life as she is, and a bitter rivalry develops between Robert and John, intensified when Robert realizes he still loves Christine⁸.

The family melodrama is set against a parallel African storyline: as the local village chief weakens and nears death from an old lion bite, his teenage son prepares to succeed him. When Robert interferes in the tribal rites of burial, the balance between father and son is upset, and the chief's son is forced to kill a lion to prove his mettle. He singles out Tina's beloved King, with disastrous results⁸.

Production

The film was photographed in its entirety in East Africa, and its opening credits thank the authorities of the national parks and game reserves of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika for their cooperation⁴. According to William Holden: A Biography by Michelangelo Capua, Holden convinced 20th Century Fox to build a soundstage in Africa, on his property⁸.

A year of shooting. The shoot was originally planned to last six months but ended up taking a year because of extremely heavy rains⁹. It was the first film role for Zamba, the famous lion who played King⁹.

Working with the lion. Some of the film's most unsettling scenes involve Pamela Franklin wrestling and frolicking with a fully grown lion. According to the TCM account, Zamba had allegedly killed a menstruating woman on the set of another film, yet production proceeded, with Franklin's own biological schedule coordinated with her lion-wrestling scenes once she reached puberty⁸. In his book Magic Hour, Cardiff did not explain how a lion with that history was allowed to work alongside a young actress⁸. The production did take precautions: two trained hunters with guns trained on Zamba were always on set when Franklin acted with the lion, and when a script scene called for King to wrestle with the girl, a small lion tamer wearing a wig and a dress was substituted for Franklin⁸. Cardiff, interviewed in Conversations with Jack Cardiff by Justin Bowyer, said, "It was a lovely lion, but you had to be aware of the fact that any lion could suddenly snap"⁸.

Reception

Critics generally agreed that the human custodial melodrama was less successful than the scenery and wild animal footage. Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called the drama "a distressing lot of twaddle that considerably gets in the way of the naturalist theme of the novel and the love affair of the youngster with the lion," while praising the film's handsome color footage of wild animals in Kenya⁸. Leo Mishkin, reviewing in The New York Morning Telegraph, described Zamba as "even more handsome than William Holden"⁸. A 1963 review in The Criterion called it "a stunning and exciting film out of a mediocre novel"¹⁰. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer score of 62 percent from a single listed review¹¹, and IMDb users have rated it 6.2 out of 10².

Adaptation from the novel

The film makes several changes to Kessel's novel, particularly in the relationships. In the novel the girl is named Patricia and her mother Sybil; John Bullit is Patricia's real father rather than her stepfather, and the narrator has no family relation to Patricia or her mother, having never met them before coming to Kenya. In the novel's ending, Patricia leaves with the narrator while her mother stays behind³.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1960s › Released 1960 to 1965

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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