I know a lot of people are probably inside right now and some may feel like they've watched everything on Disney+, but hopefully that's an exaggeration. Actually, everyone probably watches the same stuff and doesn't go that deeply into it. Prior to release, it seemed like Disney was throwing reams of stuff on there no one remembered or ever heard of, but they didn't completely empty the vault: I searched for this a minute ago, and no dice. From 1964, Walt Disney's A Tiger Walks, per the GCD no story credit, art by Warren Tufts.
This was a movie adaption of a 1964 film with Brian Keith and Vera Miles, based on a 1961 novel by Ian Niall. I can't say on the other two, but the comic features surprisingly little tiger! A circus truck containing tigers makes a stop in the "small back-country village of Scotia" with a flat tire. While waiting for a replacement, one of the tiger's handlers decides to prove he's not afraid of the cat by poking it, and the tiger gets out. Although the sheriff's daughter is cornered by the tiger, it doesn't attack, but does escape into the hills. The mean handler grabs a shotgun from a local and gives chase, perhaps not hearing said local's warning that he had fired the only shot, which probably saves the tiger and dooms the handler.
The sheriff was in the middle of a surprisingly contentious re-election campaign, with the governor trying to push him out and install his own man. They disagree about how to handle the tiger, the issue made worse by the daughter appearing on TV in favor of trying to save it. Her pleas serve as an unintended fundraiser for the tiger, with viewers mailing in cash to go towards "a nice zoo instead of a cage." That...that's still a cage, albeit probably better conditions and more humane. Maybe not what some might see as ideal, but for the time I think "don't immediately kill it" would have been an extremely liberal viewpoint. The governor sends in the national guard, to wander around in the fog looking for it, which results in a character actor getting shot. The likenesses aren't amazing in this one, but got close enough for Arthur Hunnicutt to get that "I've seen him in other stuff" feeling.
Not wanting to let his little girl down, the sheriff goes in with a tranquilizer dart to capture the tiger, even though the national guard had been trying to herd it with mortar fire. The tiger is captured and reunited with its cubs in what looks like a very nice zoo...for the sixties...and the sheriff wins election by a landslide, so all's swell that ends swell. I feel like Disney made about 14 films a year in the sixties and early seventies with nature themes not unlike this one, and when I was younger they would just destroy me. I would've bawled my goddamn head off if I thought the tiger was gonna get hurt. Fortunately, now I'm a man, older, wiser, deader inside...
1 comment:
Never heard of this one before but it makes we wonder why it's never been re-made since.
That seems to be the current trend for Hollyweird these days, remake any movie or franchise that was even the slightest bit successful.
The only Disney movie that made me cry like a little bitch as a kid was The Fox and The Hound. That last bit at end where you hear the echo "We'll always be friends...forever."
Goddamn...
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