The Vine: September 4, 2009
I’m hoping you can help me out with a movie title.I was a pretty little kid when video rentals first became a thing. There was a store in my town that rented out bootleg, copied movies.My parents would always rent me The Journey of Natty Gann, my favorite movie at the time.
Well, at the end of this bootleg copy, there was also a movie (a short film?) about a guy who crash lands a small plane somewhere in Africa.He’s hurt and trapped, but he has his dog with him (something that looks like a black Lab, I think) and he writes a plea for help and puts it in a pill bottle and attaches it to the dog’s collar.
The rest of the movie is mostly silent (or maybe narrated?).The dog travels across the bush in search of help.At one point he goes through a tribe of people who take the note off his collar. They can’t read it, but they like the pill bottle so they take it and put the note in one of their own ornate wooden bottles and reattach it to the dog.The dog goes on to befriend a lion.They travel across the desert together and then I think the lion saves the dog from a poisonous snake by taking the bite himself and dies.
This would have been a movie from the ’70s or ’80s, or maybe even ’60s, but it was definitely in color.I’ve tried various Google searches but have only come up with someone else trying to remember the title.
Can you help?
I Always Cried When The Lion Died
Dear Lion,
I’m about to cry right now!But I can’t help — let’s hope the readers can.Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
Could it be “Race for Survival”? Here’s a description from amazon (I’m having trouble finding mention of the film anywhere else):
” ‘Race for Survival’ is a story about an African Game Warden who crashes his small spotting airplane in the African Plains. While he survives, he is trapped in the plane and sends his dog ‘Smoky’ for help with a note that shows where the plane crashed. While the greyhound dog runs for help some tribesmen stumble across the plane and nurse the warden back to health in their village. When the dog returns and his master is gone, he frantically searches for him.”
ETA: It seems like this might be an episode from The Wonderful World of Disney TV show.
I think Georgia has it — it was an episode of “The Wonderful World of Disney” — details are here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1113038/
I think maybe it was on The Wonderful World of Disney on ABC? Race For Survival? Description from TV.com:
“An African game warden’s plane crashes in a remote area in Nairobi. His greyhound, Smokey, escapes from the wreckage with a note with instructions to find the man and help him. On the way, the dog befriends a lion who helps him get through the African wilderness and find help for his owner.”
http://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-World-Disney-Three-Survival/dp/B0001NBITI
Wow, you can buy copies of Wonderful World of Disney episodes?? (on VHS, but still!) I think every episode of WWD must have featured a dog/children getting separated from their families and making their way through Africa/Mexico/Appalachia to find them.
They should totally remake these, but as a Travel Channel special.
@ Liz C: And every journey was narrated by Hoyt Axton.
Aww, I’m getting a little weepy over the lion now myself.
Oh man! The Journey of Natty Gann was MAGICAL!!!! Talk about crying!! When her Dad is in the back of the truck and she is riding past him and he’s all hurt and then they FINALLY reconnect!!!! I SO wanted to be her!!!!
Sorry, anyway, I hope you find the movie you are looking for, doesn’t sound familiar… seems like “Georgia” has it!!!!
I remember when my dad took me to see The Journey of Natty Gann in the theater and I ended up with SUCH a crush on John Cusack. What a hottie…
Yup, Natty Gann is where my love of John Cusack comes from, also.
It is my personal goal to NEVER, not EVER, watch another movie and/or TV show in which the animal – any animal – dies.
I’ve had more than enough of it in my own life, and I sure don’t need it in my “entertainment”, so this is a roundabout way of saying a sincere and heartfelt “thank you” for the story description, because I will keep a diligent eye out. “Lion dies” tops “faithful hound succeeds” in the Misery Sweepstakes.
I don’t know if this is an actual has-its-own-disorder-name affliction, or if I’ve just bawled my eyes out once too often, watching some really great show that – hey, look! It has an animal in it! The animal is cute! And smart! And loyal! And – DYING!
If there’s a cure for this particular affliction, please let me know.
(Let me introduce you to “Passion In The Desert”, if you haven’t had enough of this sort of story in your own viewing history.”)
That’s definitely it! Oh, the aging lion!
La BellaDonna: My sister and I are still traumatized by the horse drowning in mud from The Neverending Story, and he even comes back to life at the end! The Neverending Sobbing, more like. Ugh. I can take it, usually, when a person dies. I sobbed in Brokeback, wept through Beaches, sniffled in Harold & Maude. But I can’t even look at the stupid poster for Marley & Me, or the one for [someone] & Lucy (I’d look it up, but it’ll probably make me cry).
And FUCK YOU, Futurama. That episode with Fry’s dog was a lowdown dirty trick.
I think we should call this affliction Old Yeller Fever.
http://tinyurl.com/5wcukc
“Wendy and Lucy”–very sad, very scary in a real-life way.
@Isabelle: Perfect. “Old Yeller Fever” it is. [Scribbles notes furiously] Futurama episode with … Fry’s dog … ANY book with a cute, beloved animal …. HORSE DROWNING ….
And, more’s the pity, I don’t remember what I was watching … some group of teens on board a ship; I think I was expecting some kind of “Perfect Storm” moment, and what happened? One of the kids casually harpoons A DOLPHIN! That put me in total hysterical meltdown. Who the hell harpoons a dolphin?!
If I can, I’ll avoid those heartstring-tugging moments with humans, too; after all, I have life for that. But it doesn’t make me go into mental meltdown in the same way. I can’t even watch “donate for the animals” commercials without sobbing.
“I think we should call this affliction Old Yeller Fever.” Excellent, isabelle!
I comfort myself that there’s an ASPCA person onsite and just because someone stopped WRITING ABOUT THE DOG it didn’t really harm the real dog. It helps a little…
(And I don’t bat an eye when a human dies in a movie…it’s twisted.)
@ La BellaDonna: Jesus, so much word. Seriously, funck any movie where an animal dies or gets lost or whatever. I’ve never seen “Marley and Me” and I ain’t gonna. “Shiloh?” Is about a beagle. Like my beagle that died 20 years ago. Like my beagle I’m still grieving over.
And why do they always show those kinds of movies to you in grade school? I think that elementary school teachers secretly hate little kids and use “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “Old Yeller” to get back at them.
PSA!!!! @all of us with Old Yeller Fever…there’s an episode of Hoarding “Jake/Shirley” – DO NOT WATCH IT. (Shirley hoards cats.)
Margaret in CO:
God Bless you for that PSA.
I did feline rescue, out of my own pocket, for nearly twenty-five years; I stopped only when my health broke. I could feel worse about having spent all my money on rescuing kitties; I could have saved for my “retirement”, kept my money in an IRA that went bust.
I got my money’s worth.
I’ll continue wandering off topic and just say La BellaDonna, people like you are the reason I can still believe in humanity. I volunteer at a cat shelter and wow, if there’s a place that makes you NOT believe in humanity, it’s there. My current favorite is a sweet little girl who had to have her tail amputated after a rubber band was left on it tightly. (Don’t worry; she’s fine now, and sweet as pie.)
Old Yeller Fever is a killer; Where the Red Fern Grows had me in TEARS and that episode of Futurama with Fry’s dog is just MEAN! Mean mean mean. *sniffle*
Add the freakin’ *Red Pony* to the list. If I remember what was on screen through my tears, it includes the boy finding the body of his beloved pony just as a buzzard pecks out one of its eyes.
I was fully an adult before I would read any Steinbeck, and I’ll never read this particular story collection, which is often assigned to junior-high kids.
How about A Day No Pigs Would Die? The boy has to kill his beloved pig for his starving family and probably EAT PIGGY HIMSELF!!!!!!! And this is some kind of test of manhood for him.
Definitely some sadistic teachers assigning that one.
Crying at ASPCA commercials? Check. Ditto at the Iams commercials where they donate to shelters, WWF commercial about the polar bears, The movie “Dumbo”. Most Disney animal movies, Etc.
I’ve never understood why kids cartoon movies about animals always mean getting separated from Mom or Mom dying (usually horifically
Blessings to all of us who suffer from Old Yeller Syndrome. Can watch or read about people dying. Let an animal suffer and I’m BAWLING!
Nightbird: As far as I can tell, Disney et al. are horrifically invested in good ol’ Mom dying a horrible, horrible death. Think about it: it’s Mom who has to peg off to make way for Evil Stepmothers to appear; it’s Mom who pegs off, heroically or otherwise, in Bambi and in Ice Age; and it isn’t good ol’ MOM who’s searching for Nemo.
I’ve reached the point where I actively avoid anything with animals in it; I can’t take the trauma any more. I’ve recently added the commercials that feature the eight big tattooed excons who rescue animals; God bless them in their endeavors, but I can’t take it any more.