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Title: LION INTERVIEW

Reference number: 9860

Date: 1956c

Production company: Templar Film Studios

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: bw

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 17.13 mins

Description: Footage of Helena and Frank Farrar, founders of Southport and Colchester Zoo, at home with their pet lion Rajah, and also shots of animal trainer Alex Kerr in the circus ring with his tigers.

This looks like footage taken for the BBC programme 'The Smokey Club' which ran a feature on 'How to House-train a Lion' (27 October 1956) featuring Frank Farrar. See http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/5a2fa6c8e2f4451580116850b1cfc5ee [last accessed 27/07/2020]

See also ref. 9859

Shotlist: [no title] - int shots living room in house, lion lying on rug - interviewer holds microphone on cable towards lion, Frank Farrar watches - interviewer talks to Helena Farrar - c/u shots lion lying on rug - lion's feet brush against her feet, she moves its feet away - Frank plays with lion on rug - interviewer talks to lion as it lounges on rug, holds out microphone again (4.27) Templar Film Studios clapperboard in picture [production looks like 'TVTA', date indecipherable] - interviewer interviews Helena, then Frank walks into frame to be interviewed - Frank lies down on floor and strokes lion (6.43) clapperboard, interviewer talking, lion looks towards camera - Helena talking (9.03) clapperboard, c/u shot Helena being interviewed (11.15) clapperboard, interviewer and Helena chatting, several takes (14.06) gvs in circus cage, possibly Bertram Mills circus at Olympia, London - tiger on stool marked 'Sita' - trainer Alex Kerr lights cigarette in cage - three tigers wrestle around enclosure in middle of cage - group of men watch from outside cage - Kerr shouts out as tigers wrestle - tiger goes over to Kerr, who holds and strokes it - sequence of shots where Kerr and tiger chase each other around the ring and jump in and out of the circular enclosure in middle - Kerr strokes tiger's head and nuzzles it (17.13)