An Elephant Called Slowly
1969 film by James Hill
An Elephant Called Slowly is a 1969 British film directed by James Hill and starring Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers and Pole Pole the elephant. It was written by Travers and Hill.
Premise
The film showcasesthe adventures of Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, with three African elephants at Tsavo National Park.
Cast
Virginia McKenna as Ginny
Bill Travers as Bill
Vinay Inambar as Mr Mophagee
Joab Collins as Henry
Ali Twaha as Mutiso
Raffles Harman
George Adamson as himself
Pole Pole, the elephant
Pole Pole was a young elephant that had been captured as an orphan, from the wild and was being temporarily held in Nairobi before a relocation to UK. It was one of the three elephants used in the film.
Once production of the film ended, Pole Pole, aged two, was donated by the Government of Kenya as a gift to the Queen. This was despite efforts to save it from the relocation to a zoo in London. In UK it was to be held in an enclosed environment, unlike in Kenya, where it roamed freely in the wild.
The elephant later on died, years later, at Regent Zoo in London, while in the process of being transferred to a different facility, Whipsnade Zoo. Its death led to the creation of the Born Free Foundation by Travers and McKenna to look after the welfare of animals, including elephants.
Production
The film was shot on location in Kenya.
The public source identifies “An Elephant Called Slowly” as 1969 film by James Hill. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Elephant, Called and Slowly.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4749891. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “An Elephant Called Slowly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.