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The Belstone Fox
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The Belstone Fox
The Belstone Fox (also known as Free Spirit) is a 1973 British film directed by James Hill and starring Eric Porter, Jeremy Kemp and Bill Travers. It was written by Hill based on David Rook's 1970 novel, The Ballad of the Belstone Fox.
The Belstone Fox is the nickname given to Tag, a fox cub rescued from the woods and adopted by huntsman Asher. The young fox is reared in captivity with a litter of hound puppies, including Merlin, with whom Tag becomes especially friendly. Asher and Tod are fascinated by Tag, who combines cool cunning and knowledge of human habitation to lead the pack and hunters in many a "merry chase." This gives the fox a status of local celebrity, enough to be published in magazines. Merlin, at first not interested in the hunts, becomes an active hound but protective of Tag. Asher, now an aging huntsman to the hunt club, is mildly protective of the fox until Tag leads the pack of hounds into the path of a train, killing many, and the club resolves to shoot the fox. Asher sees this as disturbing and against the natural order of life, and determines to bring down the fox in the approved manner, rather than with a firearm, however he dies from a sudden heart attack while attempting to do the deed. His once beloved fox and its friend Merlin sit beside their master until the rescue party comes.
The Rank Organisation financed four films at the end of the 1974 financial year,Carry on Dick, Carry on Girls, The Belstone Fox and Don't Just Lie There, Say Something, and partly financed Soft Beds and Hard Battles and Caravan to Vaccares.
Filming started October 1972.
The Belstone Fox was mostly filmed in Somerset, on and near the Quantock Hills, with some additional filming on Dartmoor. The scene where Tag rests on a tomb in the church yard was filmed at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Over Stowey, Somerset. Many of the extras were members of the West Somerset Vale Hunt.
The setting for the "Lawn Meet" at the Master's home was the nearby Barford Park. The scene where the hounds are led into the train tracks was filmed on a stretch of the West Somerset Railway, and was filmed in reverse and then played backward in order to get a realistic sense of the train colliding with the pack of hounds.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "An unhappy example of how not to adapt a popular novel, with a badly constructed script relying on voice-overs for explanations that could easily be included in the action and raising issues and sub-plots that are never pursued. Characterisation is minimal (the actors coming a poor second to the attractively photographed animal 'stars'), and all the care and patience that has gone into the wild life photography is thrown away on an unconvincing plot. The hunting scenes have been played for sensation, with a 'blooding' ceremony and an improbable number of falls, all lovingly displayed in slow motion. Predictably, the film gets a lot of mileage out of being sentimentally anti-blood sports while blatantly exploiting their violence, and leaves very little to the imagination in the incident in which hounds are mown down by a train."
Time Out called the film "a dismayingly literal and unimaginative version of David Rook's novel." Filmink wrote "lovingly made, it's a little austere."
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The Belstone Fox
The Belstone Fox (also known as Free Spirit) is a 1973 British film directed by James Hill and starring Eric Porter, Jeremy Kemp and Bill Travers. It was written by Hill based on David Rook's 1970 novel, The Ballad of the Belstone Fox.
The Belstone Fox is the nickname given to Tag, a fox cub rescued from the woods and adopted by huntsman Asher. The young fox is reared in captivity with a litter of hound puppies, including Merlin, with whom Tag becomes especially friendly. Asher and Tod are fascinated by Tag, who combines cool cunning and knowledge of human habitation to lead the pack and hunters in many a "merry chase." This gives the fox a status of local celebrity, enough to be published in magazines. Merlin, at first not interested in the hunts, becomes an active hound but protective of Tag. Asher, now an aging huntsman to the hunt club, is mildly protective of the fox until Tag leads the pack of hounds into the path of a train, killing many, and the club resolves to shoot the fox. Asher sees this as disturbing and against the natural order of life, and determines to bring down the fox in the approved manner, rather than with a firearm, however he dies from a sudden heart attack while attempting to do the deed. His once beloved fox and its friend Merlin sit beside their master until the rescue party comes.
The Rank Organisation financed four films at the end of the 1974 financial year,Carry on Dick, Carry on Girls, The Belstone Fox and Don't Just Lie There, Say Something, and partly financed Soft Beds and Hard Battles and Caravan to Vaccares.
Filming started October 1972.
The Belstone Fox was mostly filmed in Somerset, on and near the Quantock Hills, with some additional filming on Dartmoor. The scene where Tag rests on a tomb in the church yard was filmed at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Over Stowey, Somerset. Many of the extras were members of the West Somerset Vale Hunt.
The setting for the "Lawn Meet" at the Master's home was the nearby Barford Park. The scene where the hounds are led into the train tracks was filmed on a stretch of the West Somerset Railway, and was filmed in reverse and then played backward in order to get a realistic sense of the train colliding with the pack of hounds.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "An unhappy example of how not to adapt a popular novel, with a badly constructed script relying on voice-overs for explanations that could easily be included in the action and raising issues and sub-plots that are never pursued. Characterisation is minimal (the actors coming a poor second to the attractively photographed animal 'stars'), and all the care and patience that has gone into the wild life photography is thrown away on an unconvincing plot. The hunting scenes have been played for sensation, with a 'blooding' ceremony and an improbable number of falls, all lovingly displayed in slow motion. Predictably, the film gets a lot of mileage out of being sentimentally anti-blood sports while blatantly exploiting their violence, and leaves very little to the imagination in the incident in which hounds are mown down by a train."
Time Out called the film "a dismayingly literal and unimaginative version of David Rook's novel." Filmink wrote "lovingly made, it's a little austere."