Description: From: Big Cat Rescue's website: We never ceased to be amazed at how quickly a stupid idea is spread around. If you have had Internet access for more than a week, you have probably had someone send you a link to a 1971 video clip of two guys hugging a lion that they raised as a pet and then sent to Africa when they couldn't play with him anymore. The people passing this around obviously know nothing about big cats, or they could see that in the re-union featured below, the male is still a kitten (hardly any mane) so despite his large size, his brain is still that of a dependent cub. Most of the big cats you see in circus acts, road side petting booths and night club acts are under the age of five because they look big to the public, but have not fully developed mentally. Passing this video around is a bad idea for a number of reasons. It perpetuates the nonsense that people can have a bond with the king of beasts, just like with their dog. It encourages people to buy these magnificent animals or buy the right to touch one, which only fuels the trade. As long as people will pay, there will be people who will breed more big cats to live miserable lives of confinement and deprivation. If someone sends the video clip to you, please send them to this page so that we can stop the viral marketing of a campaign that is designed only to cause suffering and pain. The following is what is known of the story behind the clip. The British documentary ?Christian the Lion? is a fascinating example of life imitating art. In this case, the art was the 1966 film classic ?Born Free? starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna. That film was based on the real-life story of George and Joy Adamson and their successful efforts to re-introduce an orphaned lion into the wilderness. (What most people do not know is that Elsa didn't live long on her own due to the fact that is impossible for a person to teach a big cat everything they need to know to survive without the cat coming to not have a healthy fear of going near people.) ?Christian the Lion? found Travers and McKenna in an advanced case of déjà vu. In 1970, they were shopping for a desk and ventured into the World?s End furniture store on the King?s Road in London. The store managers, the Australian duo John Rendall and Ace Berg, recognized Travers and decided to show him the store?s mascot: a young lion. Rendall and Berg had purchased the lion from the Harrod?s department store a year earlier and were raising him on their own. But, of course, a furniture store is no place to keep a lion ? and the combined salaries of two furniture store managers were barely keeping the animal fed. Travers and McKenna, who had become highly visible as animal rights activists following the success of ?Born Free,? realized that the lion could not be kept as a domestic pet. And selling him to a zoo seemed like a cruel idea ? zoo design was still fairly primitive in the early 1970s and imprisoning a majestic lion in a stark cage was a ghastly notion. Thus, Travers and McKenna decided to reprise their ?Born Free? odyssey and called on George Adamson for an unlikely plan: to bring the London lion to Africa and teach him how to be a wild animal at home with nature. (Joy Adamson had separated from her husband in 1970 and, thus, was not a part of this venture.) Travers and McKenna also decided to record this story as a documentary. The resulting ?Christian the Lion? actually gets off on a bit of a strange opening, with a clumsy recreation of the actors? initial discovery of Christian. For starters, the sound is badly out-of-sync ? watching the opening sequence is disconcerting, as it is easy to assume the production is an amateur outing. Even worse, the facts have been trimmed to the bone. Contrary to the film?s assertion, Christian?s presence was not a surprise to everyone ? the lion was actually something of a minor celebrity in London before Travers and McKenna showed up, and it was even featured in a fashion advertising campaign. Furthermore, the film ignores Rendall and Berg?s respective girlfriends, who helped in the care and maintenance of Christian. Rendall also wrote a book called ?A Lion Called Christian,? but that?s not cited here. After that initial clumsy segment is over, ?Christian the Lion? finds its traction and is presented as a real-time, real-life adventure. Travers and McKenna invited Christian and his owners to live with them while arrangements are made to transport him to Africa. They took the lion on outings for a spot of exercise ? a romp in a closed-off church courtyard (with the vicar watching nervously from behind a curtained window) and a visit to the beach. The latter trip might have prompted the inclusion of the old British music hall ditty ?Oh, We Do Like to be Beside the Seaside,? but instead the film?s score is provided in hippy-dippy melodies by the English folk-rockers Pentangle. Getting Christian to Kenya required a great deal of negotiations with the Kenyan government (obviously they had enough lions and weren?t eager to import one from England). Travers and McKenna, who alternate as narrators of the film, mention in passing that dealing with the Kenyan authorities took more time and energy than they expected. Nonetheless, they are able to get Christian transported to Kenya and into the care of George Adamson?s game reserve. The remainder of the film follows Adamson?s efforts to integrate Christian into his new surroundings. That first involved introducing him to other lions ? up until this point, Christian lived exclusively with human company. Adamson tried to create a new pride of lions consisting of Christian and three other orphaned animals: the female Katania, the frisky tyke Super Cub, and a male lion named Boy who took an immediate dislike to Christian. However, once Boy and Christian determined the pecking order among them (Boy won the Alpha Male spot), the two became happy blokes. Adamson?s next challenge was getting this new pride to take care of itself in the wild. The lions had to learn to hunt and to defend themselves from other lions that roamed Adamson?s preserve. Did Christian and his new family make it in the wild (if you can call the preserve, the wild)? If so, how long? Does anyone know? There is a sequence late in the film that will soften even the most cynical of hard-hearts. The finds McKenna at a zoo in Amsterdam, where she has located Christian?s parents. The two lions are locked in a small, bare cage with a concrete floor. They pace endlessly and monotonously back and forth. It is tragic to behold these beautiful animals in such cruel captivity, and the viewer knows the beasts will never experience the chance for freedom that their offspring experienced. Details on the production history for ?Christian the Lion? are somewhat difficult to track down. Some sources list the film as a 1971 production, others claim it was from 1976. One online source states the film was produced in conjunction with Rendall?s book, which came out in 1972, so that would probably put the film?s production closer to the earlier date. Also, a recent article in the Daily Mail outlines a 1974 reunion between Christian and his London buddies, but that meeting also included Christian?s lioness and cubs. There is no mention of this in the film, so I would assume the production wrapped in 1971 (it would seem peculiar to leave this post-script from the film). 1976 most likely reflects the year the film played in the U.S. The film also has something of a problem with its name. The original British title was ?The Lion at World?s End,? a reference to the London neighborhood where Christian was raised. However, that reference had no meaning outside of the U.K., so the film was given a new title for its American release: ?The Lion Who Thought He Was People.? The film?s U.S. distributor, Scotia American, created a poster with Christian wearing big round eyeglasses ? making him look like the leonine equivalent of the cartoon canine Mr. Peabody. Of course, that title was even worse than the original, and the film was renamed ?Christian the Lion? for its U.S. and global distribution. In the U.K., it is now called ?Christian ? The Lion at World?s End.? There are also a few sources that insist ?The Lion at World?s End? and ?Christian the Lion? are two different movies. That is not the case. Scotia American went out of business in the mid-1970s and nobody seems to be claiming the film?s U.S. rights. Several distributors who specialize in public domain titles have been offering faded, muddy prints of ?Christian the Lion? on home video and DVD.

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