Grey Owl, Britain / Canda 1999

“I found our eighth and most testing project in, of all places, my GP’s waiting room. Leafing through a tattered copy of Country Life, I came across a photograph of an imposing Red Indian chief, clad in the full regalia including a huge eagle-feather war bonnet. From the accompanying story, I learned that, before he was exposed as an impostor in the late 1930s, this extraordinary character – real nationality English, real name Archie Belaney – had toured Britain under his assumed Native Canadian identity, lecturing among other venues, at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester.” (Attenborough’s memoir, page 151)

This is a biopic but one that takes great liberties with the actual story of the titular character.

Helpfully Wikipedia summarises his life;

“Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938), commonly known as Grey Owl, was a popular writer, public speaker and conservationist. Born an Englishman, in the latter years of his life he passed as half-Indian, claiming he was the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. With books, articles and public appearances promoting wilderness conservation, he achieved fame in the 1930s. Shortly after his death in 1938, his real identity as the Englishman Archie Belaney was exposed.”

This is followed by a detailed history and it is worth noting that the film is vague on many dates. The film’s story seems to cover from the mid-1920s to Archie death in 1938, then in his forties. Apart from a flashback most of his life is missing. This includes several marriages and two children. It also includes the wilder aspects of his character with some rather serious incidents at school, in early employment and in his life in Canada. At the same time the film does emphasises his work as a conservationist and his influence through books and speaking tours.

The film was directed by Richard Attleborough and produced by him with Jake Eberts. Eberts had also been involved in Gandhi and was later involved in a film about Native Americans, Dances with Wolves (1990). Attenborough recalled that he had attended a lecture by Grey Owl in Leicester in 1936 together with his brother David. Both seemed to have been strongly influenced by this on the issue of conservation. I wonder if it was David who took Richard along; he was the one who remembered attending the lecture and then queuing to by a signed copy of the book.

The script is by William Nicholson, who wrote Shadowlands. As with that film there is an unlikely romance at the centre of this story, which works pretty well. But the wider context of Canada, Native Canadian Culture and the environmental challenges rather escapes him. The production company was Largo Entertainment, the company founded in 1989 starting promisingly with Point Break (1991). It also produced some interesting titles but Grey Owl was it last film before bankruptcy. The fellow production company was the British Allied Film-makers, which survived until 2010.

The film opens in 1936 as a journalist calls at Archie’s dressing room (Pierce Brosnan); he is on a speaking tour abroad and now back in Canada. In answer to his enquiry we get a flashback to 1934. Archie is already an established Indian character, living in the wilds and surviving by trapping but also writing for magazines. A client, Harry Champlin (Vasta Vrana), on a hunting trip, is a wealthy publisher, and suggests Archie could write a book. This segues into Archie meeting a young waitress at a cafe for tourists who visit this remote settlement, [actually years earlier]. Pony (originally Gertrude Bernard) has an Indian name of Anahareo, and is originally of Algonquin and Mohawk ancestry, (Annie Galipeau). Fascinated by the wilderness and her lost Indian culture she follows Archie back to his cabin. Their relationship is at first uneven but after he rescues her from a frozen lake it become sexual. Pony has a softening effect on Archie. In the evening in the cabin he starts to write, about his life, the wilderness and the threats to it.

An important sequence is when Archie, still trapping, kills a mother beaver. Her lost off springs are adopted by Pony. And as Archie softens he become involved and decides to give up trapping. The two young beavers, McGinnis and McGinty, become important characters for the couple and Archie’s developing public persona. It is Pony’s suggestion that leads to Archie giving a very successful talk to visiting tourists on the wilderness and on the beaver.

Pierce Brosnan and Anne Galipeau with the young beavers

Harry Champlin now follows up on his interest in publishing a book by Archie. This leads to a successful speaking tour in North America and in England. Archie appears in Indian regalia and speaks eloquently of the wilderness and the need for environmental protection., Short films shot of Archie and Pony in the wilderness accompany this. In England Archie, following a lecture, visits his actual home in Hastings. After the departure of his father and his mothers inability to cope Archie was raised by two maiden aunts. He now visit them and finds that they have kept his old teenage room as it was then; with Indian illustration, maps, models and literature.

As the film nears its end we return to the scene of the journalist visit to Archie. He has discovered who Archie really is; an English émigré posing as an Indian. Archie makes a farewell appearance and the journalist promises not to reveal the truth till after his death. There is a final scene of Archie’s at an Indian ritual, [a clip of the sequence runs under the opening credits]. The assembled chiefs quickly realise that Archie is not an actual Indian; something they find funny. A lead chief states,

‘men become what they dream – you have dreamed well’

Archie and Pony return to the wilderness. Online titles accompanied by a voice-over of Pony’s brother, Ned White Bear (Nathaniel Arcand) inform the viewer that Archie died in 1938. That after his death his real story was revealed. A long tracking shot over a northern lake accompanies restatement of his environmental concerns. [Not a Beaver in sight].

The film has good production values and some fine location settings and landscapes. It relies on a number of regular Attenborough collaborators: Roger Pratt cinematography: Lesley Walker editing: and George Fenton music; it also includes footage from the films of Archie shot by William J. Oliver in the 1930s. Overall the cast are solid but seemingly limited by the script; some of the dialogue seems very conventional. The ambiguity over dates rather undermines the narrative. Pierce Brosnan’s Archie lacks the volatile character suggested by Belaney’s biography. It is a rather one-note performance. Like a number of the cast Annie Galipeau is a Native Canadian, born in Quebec province where part of the film was shot. Her role is underwritten and, like Archie’s, leaves out important facts; she was herself also a writer and activist. And, in real life McGinnis and McGinty died young and were replaced with other young beavers.

The film failed at the box office and with the critics. There were some scathing reviews and the film may have been the last nail in the coffin of Largo. The film did have production problems, delays in getting off the ground. And there were more problems working with, in some cases, young and untried actors. But the greatest problem likely was fitting the personal drama and the epic settings into one film and that running under two hours. The romance worked better than In Love and War but less so than in Shadowlands. And the final movie never quite achieved some of the action in landscapes that was there In Love and War.

In Technicolor and Panavision, 2.35:1, running time 118 minutes. In English, Ojibwa, Sioux, and French, only partly translated with sub-titles.