Lion Hunting
About Lion Hunting
Two hunters and an African guide, on a safari played in Denmark, watch zebras, an ostrich, and a hippopotamus, and catch a monkey. At night a lion kills their goat and then their horse. They shoot that lion at the edge of the water, then shoot a second. The animals are gutted and skinned. The hunters sit and smoke beside the skins. The lions were real, and they were killed for the camera.
Cast & crew
More about Lion Hunting
Viggo Larsen directed and plays one hunter. Ole Olsen produced. Arnold Richard Nielsen wrote it. Axel Graatkjær photographed it. Knud Lumbye is the other hunter. William Thomsen plays the guide. The lion scenes were shot in the summer of 1907 on Elleore, a small island in the Roskilde Fjord, dressed with palm fronds. Other animals were filmed at the Copenhagen Zoo, the camera tilted down so the fences stayed out of frame, and in a forest north of the city. Olsen bought two old lions from Carl Hagenbeck in Hamburg for 5,000 Deutschmarks. The negative is 215 meters, about 10 minutes. The Danish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals protested to Justice Minister Peter Adler Alberti, who banned the shooting. Olsen filmed anyway and smuggled the print to Sweden, where it opened in 1907. Graatkjær spent a day in jail. Alberti banned the film in Denmark and took away Olsen's license for the Biograf Theater. The cruelty charges were later dropped, the ban was lifted, and the Danish premiere was November 11, 1908.
Themes
Background
In 1907 a Danish justice minister tried to stop a film in which two captive lions would be shot. The picture opened in Sweden that year and in Denmark, after the ban was lifted, on November 11, 1908.
In film history
The protest, the ban, and the 259 prints sold made Nordisk's name outside Denmark.
Making
Alberti had already forbidden the kill when Olsen shot the two lions on Elleore and sent the negative out of the country. The rest of the safari is zoo animals and a dressed island.
Look
Axel Graatkjær shot the kill on Elleore and the other animals at the Copenhagen Zoo, tilting the camera so the enclosure fences do not show.
Preservation
A print survives. A copy running about 11 minutes is posted for viewing.
Notes
- The Danish title is Løvejagten. The English title is also given as The Lion Hunt.
- Nordisk sold 259 prints.
- The zoo shots hide the bars by pointing the camera down.
- Graatkjær's arrest lasted one day.
- The Swedish opening in 1907 came before the Danish premiere of November 11, 1908.
Scenes
- The hunters shoot the first lion where it stands by the water, after it has killed the goat and the horse.
- They skin both lions and sit smoking next to the hides.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-lvejagten-aka-the-lion-hunt)