Customer Reviews

The Wonderful World Of Disney : A Tiger Walks

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie is somewhat standard fare for The Wonderful World of Disney from the early 1960's. I tended to watch these shows faithfully every Sunday night. At that time I was able to ignore the inconsistencies in the plots and the occasionally bizarre acting because I was young and had few preconceived notions regarding people and their behavior. As an adult I have a very different perspective of this movie.

Brian Keith plays rural sheriff Pete Williams. This movie adds a small complexity in that Williams is up for re-election. A circus truck driving through the town in which Williams lives has a flat tire. One of the drivers stops in the local watering hole and quickly becomes obnoxious. Soon the driver is showing off and tormenting one of the tigers in the back of his truck. The tiger soon makes a break for the wilderness surrounding the small town and shortly thereafter everyone gives chase.

The tiger decides that he is tired of being tormented and chased and kills someone in self defense. The bloodthirsty locals decide it is time for a tiger hunt, and they go heading off into the countryside, with the national guard following close behind. Things become even more interesting when the sheriff's daughter Julie (Pamela Franklin) appears in an interview and makes it appear that her father wants to capture the tiger rather than killing it.

The intensity of the movie slowly increases as we see the National Guard using helicopters and mortars in their attempt to kill the tiger. Will Sheriff Williams try to capture the tiger rather than killing it? How will he be able to capture the tiger when handler Ram Singh (Sabu, in his last role) was unable to capture him? A viewer has many mysteries to learn the answers to!

This movie is actually a decent movie to watch, though the movie is somewhat dated. There are bizarre incongruities in the film that will give some viewers pause. The strangest characteristic of this movie is the daughter's English accent. Her accent seems strange in the middle of a small town in what appears to be a western state. I generally like Brian Keith, and he has had a number of very good appearances in Disney films. However, in this movie there was a point where I thought he was going to hit daughter Julie. He was a bit scary at that point.

This movie is a treat for movie star fans. Vera Miles plays Sheriff Williams' wife Dorothy. The late Edward Andrews plays the bumbling governor, who is also up for election. The late Una Merkel, whose acting career dated back to the 1920's, plays the owner of the only hotel in town. Peter Brown plays a deputy. Kevin Corcoran also had a supporting role in this movie. Kevin appeared quite a few Disney movies and shows in the early 1960's and late 1950's. The late Jack Albertson also makes an appearance. The late Doodles Weaver also has an uncredited role in this movie. There are many other actors appearing in this film who have or had varying degrees of fame.

This film is nominally a family film, but a few scenes in this film may distress very young family members. The most intense scenes involve the driver's tormenting of the tiger, the death mentioned earlier, and Brian Keith yelling at his daughter.

This movie falls short of being a must-have for the average family library. Fans of the various versions of The Wonderful World of Disney from the 1950's and 1960's will likely enjoy this film. I have watched this movie twice since I purchased it and enjoyed it both times, but I admit to being a fan of the Disney show in the era I mentioned.

Good luck!

"A Tiger Walks" is the tale of a Bengal Tiger that escapes one day from a Circus truck to run loose in and around a small town, quickly turning the place into a media frenzy. With fear, greed, and a heavy fog in the air, people's bad sides come out as they rush to capture, kill, and exploit the creature. Besides the tiger's kind, surviving keeper (a crueler keeper gets killed in pursuit of the animal), only the local sheriff (Brian Keith) is concerned with the animal's safety. That is, only the sheriff and kids across the country who have started a "Save That Tiger" campaign in response to the sheriff's daughter Julie's television interview. Julie is the real crusader for the tiger's plight, and campaign or not, without her persistence against her father's uncertainty the tiger would not stand a chance, especially when the governor has the military brought in to destroy him!

"A Tiger Walks" is a sufficiently gripping family-drama from 1964 Disney, and though it appears on this totally bare-bones DVD with the Wonderful World of Disney opening before it, it is in fact a theatrical feature film (though presented here in fullscreen). If you are a fan of Disney films of the time and can get behind the idea of saving dangerous animals from being needlessly slaughtered, "A Tiger Walks" will not disappoint. Most notably, it boasts a great Disney ensemble cast, with The Parent Trap's Brian Keith in the lead and Vera Miles as his wife, cutie Pamela Franklin co-starring as their young daughter Julie (you may happily remember seeing her some years later in the all-together in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brody"; she has trouble hiding her British accent a bit here), Disney Legend Kevin "Moochie" Corcoran as Julie's friend Tom, "Great Gildersleeve" Hal Peary as an exploitative kids' TV show host, Una Merkel as a greedy hotel proprietor, and Sabu in his final role as the kind Tiger trainer, among other fine and well-known performers. Nicely directed by Norman Tokar, who directed many films for Disney including a personal top fave, "The Happiest Millionaire", "A Tiger Walks" may have been labeled too childish by critics or aimed squarely at animal-film addicts at the time, but it provides solid entertainment if classic Disney live-action has ever been your cup of tea. You don't have to be a child or an animal-film lover to enjoy it!

I Love the movie "A Tiger walks" in my opinion, this is one of the best movies that Walt Disney has ever done. This movis shows how impotant the life of an animal is. This movie has true emotion and heart warming feelings in it.

Truly, A great movie,

Joseph Thompson

BEHIND THE SCENES & TRIVIA: Walt Disney oversaw this project and he liked working with people he had worked with before, who brought a familiar Disney face to his projects, but he also did it because he knew what to expect from them. This movie was no exception as half a dozen actors, the director, writer, composer, producer, art directors, set decorator, and most of the crew selected for this project had all worked on other Disney projects in the past or were full time studio employees. Directed by Norman Tokar, who also directed "Big Red", and "The Happiest Millionaire" for Disney. Tokar had a strong background in television, having previously written and directed on episodes from famous shows including Leave it to Beaver and the Donna Reed Show. While the film appears to be set in a small town, most of the shooting took place indoors at the Disney Studios in Burbank. The fog effects The screenplay was adapted from the book by Ian Niall, by Lowell Hawley. He worked as a studio writer for Disney on episodes for the Zorro series, and later wrote screenplays for the "Swiss Family Robinson", and "In Search of the Castaways" movies. The music was by long-time Disney Studio staff composer Buddy Baker, who came to Disney to work on Davey Crockett in the 1950's and stayed on, eventually composing music for the theme parks up until 1999. The art direction was by Carroll Clark, and Marvin Aubrey Davis, who would win an Emmy Award for the studio two years before this movie for their work on the Disney Studio television movie, "The Mooncussers". Set designer Emile Kuri served worked for Disney for over two decades, and was nominated for the Academy Award ® 8 times, winning it twice including "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". Add to this Brian Keith Vera Miles, Edward Andrews and others and you can see that Walt kept hiring people that were good at their craft and dependable. The supporting cast for the movie was also full of familiar faces including Una Merkel, Kevin Corcoran, peter Brown, Ed Andrews, Frank McHugh, and others. Originally the movie was writen to be much more violent and make the tiger a malicous animal, but Walt overuled that and made the tiger a victim instead and toned down the violence, as it is after all a Disney movie. This movie had it's theatrical release on March 12, 1964, at 91 minutes in length. The movie was re-edited into two episodes of the "Walt Disney Wonderful World of Color" on NBC television, and aired in the 12th season as episode #22 on March 20 & 27 1966. It re-aired in August 1966; and on September 2 & 9, 1973; and once again on June 3 & 10, 1979. First released on VHS in 1986 at 88 minutes according to the clamshell. Released as an exclusive DVD in 2008 but the image has not been re-mastered.

THE STORY: When a traveling circus drives through town, they lose a tiger due to an abusive animal handler. But another handler Ram Singh (Sabu, in his last film) knows the tiger and is determined to catch him before the locals kill him. Sheriff Williams (Brian Keith) and his wife (Vera Miles) try to keep things calm at home when their daughter (Pamela Franklin who had appeared 3 years earlier in "The Horse Without a Head") is fighting mad about attempts to kill the tiger instead of catching it. Adding to their problems, the Governor sends in the National Guard in a move to bolster his re-election campaign and uses the event to create hysteria. There are more dangers than tigers when the townsfolk and guardsmen are all tromping through the woods with loaded weapons and fog sets in. Meanwhile the sheriff's daughter helps start a national "Save That Tiger" campaign amongst school children. The sheriff may be able to handle the issue without bloodshed, but he is also facing a re-election that is struggling due to the maneuvers by the Governor and the clumsy work by the mob of reporters. The film has quite incidents of people exploiting others, enough to become a running theme of the show. This includes the hotel owner who increases her room rate 10 times the normal rate when it appears a mob of reporters and government officials are coming to town; or the local reporter who sensationalizes the story to get a big job outside the town, despite the sherrif's request to keep the story from creating panic; the Governor using the incident for his re-election; the host of a childrens show who uses the issue to build ratings; and so on. All in all, an exciting movie that points out that everyone has character flaws, but in the end we must do what is right.

A Tiger Walks is an awesome Disney live action film about a tormented Tiger who breaks loose and starts a panic in a small town.

This film has a solid cast, memorable scenes, and is highly entertaining for those who love the original series: The Wonderful World of Disney.

Buy it. It's worth the price and you will surelly enjoy and watch it over and over again. Trust me it is awesome! Buy it and enjoy the entertainment! :)

Although I'm sure no animals were harmed in the making of this film, the tigers were certainly terrorized, and for that reason, I cannot recommend this movie. If you want to see tigers, watch Two Brothers. It's far better than this old thing anyway.

I don't remember if I have seen this movie before or not. But he's really nice with great actors Pamela Franklin, Vera Mills, Brian Keith and Peter Brown and Sabu.

Picture is good condition and in fullframe 4:3. The DVD contains english subtitles!!!!

LOTS OR GOOD PICTURES OF BIG CATS, GOOD STORY-LINE, MAKES A PERSON THINK ABOUT WHAT'S IMPORTANT IN THEIR LIVES.