Grey Owl **** (1999, Pierce Brosnan, Annie Galipeau, Stewart Bick, Vlasta Vrana, Graham Greene, Renée Asherson, Stephanie Cole) – Classic Movie Review 1446

Pierce Brosnan is first-rate as a Native American imposter in director Richard Attenborough’s good-hearted, unfairly overlooked 1999 adventure and true story biopic.

Writer William Nicholson’s screenplay makes a really good, fascinating thing out of the unusual story of the life and work of the early 1930s real-life Briton turned Canadian fur trapper who claimed to be a North American Indian called Archie Grey Owl.

Archibald Belaney (1888–1938) was a British man who grew up so engrossed with Native American culture that in the early 1900s he left Britain for Canada, where he reinvented himself as Archie Grey Owl and lived in the wilds as a North American Indian trapper. The story starts when a young Iroquois woman from town asks him to teach her Indian ways. Eventually, Belaney becomes an environmentalist and conservationist after renouncing trapping and hunting.

Attenborough’s movie is a poignant, unusual and beautiful-looking work that delivers its full share of excitement and thoughtful entertainment. Annie Galipeau co-stars as Grey Owl’s wife Anahareo, with Graham Greene as Jim Bernard, Renée Asherson as Carrie Belaney and Stephanie Cole as Ada Belaney,

The film was shot in Hastings, England, Chelsea and Wakefield in Quebec, Jacques Cartier Park and Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan.

Attenborough said he and his TV naturalist brother David had attended Grey Owl’s lecture at the De Montfort Hall, in their home town of Leicester, in 1936, as seen in the film, and were influenced by his conservation message. After the poor reception for this film and a long gap. Attenborough made one more film, Closing the Ring, in 2007. He died on August 24 2014 at the age of 90.

Beautiful, durable Renee Asherson played the bride of Laurence Olivier’s title character in Henry V (1944)

London-born Renée Asherson (aka Dorothy Renée Ascherson) died on October 30 2014 at the grand old age of 99. She was last seen on the big screen in Richard Attenborough’s Grey Owl (1999) and in Alejandro Amenábar’s supernatural drama The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1446

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