Lion Hunt
(1906)
Bursting onto the silver screen in a flurry of controversy, Lion Hunt was a huge international success, telling the story of two hunters in the ‘jungle’. The film features the stalking and subsequent death of two lions.
Sprucing up an island off the Danish coast to resemble a savannah, the head of Nordisk Films, Ole Olsen, employed a couple of actors, bought a couple of lions and set about filming his own ‘African safari’. Trouble arrived when the local humane society reported them to the Minister of Justice for animal cruelty and, ignoring the authority’s ban on filming, one of the camera team ended up in jail.
Banned at the time in Denmark, the film had to be smuggled into Sweden before it could be distributed worldwide, and namely due to its notoriety, Lion Hunt was a huge success.
