Footage Found From The 1967 Version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
In 1967 the Associated British Picture Corporation released a ten-part serial adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It has since been lost and only parts 1 and 8 have survived. We were just sent a tip about episode 8 which has been uploaded to YouTube. You can view it below:
Episode 8, Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIS0ALJAwbI
Episode 8, Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLFCX_Cf_U
UPDATE: The videos have been removed.
According to our tipster, “At the time, the ABC did not have the budget to store old programs, nor any idea there would be home video, so after an initial airing and a few repeats, the recording would be trashed or erased for re-use.” You can read more about this mini-series at Wikipedia.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Thank you Jared for sending these in!
Wow! These are old! It's amazing to see how much progress fim making has made!
AHAHA! Yes it has.
Couldn't bear to see it after the piano started bonking and the top-heavy minotaurs ran on-screen!
ROFL. 2:11 Is.. wow. XDDD
Wow, never knew bout this… too bad they lost the rest…
I wonder how you they lost them. I'd love to see the rest…
Wow! I never knew this 1967 version existed, either. Perhaps in 1967 I wouldn't have been able to watch it, due to work commitments.
I enjoyed seeing this fourth reproduction of LWW, done with who I assume is the Professor. Except that today, you wouldn't have a narrator fiddling around with a pipe whilst he narrated.
And I wonder which ABC it was and why they stopped at LWW?
Wow, these are insane! I can't believe how far film making has come. Just think, back then I bet these movies were considered "beyond their time". And now look at the Narnia movies!
What I can't believe is how small a grasp people these days have of film history. These were made for TV — they would NOT have been cutting edge. The top-notch theatrical films from this period did not look ANYTHING like this, believe me.
Well said.
It was 1967. That says it all.
Do you seriously think they had green screen and such back then? No!! This was what TV was back then and I'm sorry you think differently.
Actually, lysander is right… there were many films and television shows by this time that looked much more advanced than this. No way did all shows look like this in 1967 (and yes, there were some visual effects technologies that had already been in use for decades before this, even if they weren't as advanced as the stuff we have now).
My point was that the technology that they had back then was nothing compared to what we have now. Simple as that. I don't know why people are so touchy about these things, let it go!
You said you bet they looked "beyond their time" back then. Of course not. People laughed at the production values of this cheap TV show then just as much as you laugh at it now. Go watch something like Lawrence of Arabia or Dr Zhivago and you'll see how high production values were in the 60s for real films.
Gem, of COURSE the technology has advanced. That's sort of a no-brainer. But you can't compare this Narnia to the new one in that way, because one was a cheap TV serial and the other is a big-budget theatrical franchise. A better comparison would be, say, the BBC's Merlin series. 😀
Wow that Aslan is rather grumpy and stern. A very different take of "not safe". 🙂
LOL at the minotaur.
wow, i love the jaguar an unicorn costumes! hahahahaha, they look like mascots!
These make the BBC versions look like $100 million films, haha.
Haha, so true!!! 😀
and in makes the walden LWW look like a $100 Billion LOL!!!
aggh stupid youtube won't work again 🙁
wow! First comment!
oh wait scratch my last comment lol
Yes that was Exactly what I was thinking… Well that and how much the "old" Aslan sounds like Liam Neeson
Reminds me of the scene in HP4 where Dumbledore asks Harry if he put his name in the goblet of fire. In the movie, he screams it in Harry's face.
Yah I know but this is a little on the Funnier and Cheesier side! but I still loved it!
Hold on–Aslan is a guy in leotard with a weird-looking headdress and clown makeup?! AHAHAHAHAHAHA xD
actually I like the costumed version better than the BBC one, except for the attitude, lol
of course that could be because this is black and white…
Yeah, Aslan is too scary! lol xD
Yeah, at that moment I thought he was either going to smack her in the face or bite her head off. Frightening.
They kept to the text so beautifully…could only have hoped for more of that in our modern versions. The White Witch Jadis looks far more like her description in the books and the original illustrations, too. Pretty impressive for the time! Thanks for sharing them 🙂
I really like the adult players in this, you almost forget how lame their costumes are compared to the modern versions; their acting and presence is so good. The white witch is a bit over the top, but it works. The kids on the other hand are dreadful. Even Anna Popplewell looks good in comparison.
I suspect these children are trained for stage, not film work.
Anna Popplewell is a talented and delightful actor, and you have picked the wrong place to be rude about her!
Now that you mention it, the slightly exaggerated manner of the girls and Peter would suit a stage production, where subtle gestures and tone are easily missed by audiences sitting at a distance. You're probably right about them. I still say Edmund's dreadful.
As for Anna Popplewell, she has no expression in her eyes. She attempts to convey emotion by waggling or knitting her eyebrows and it doesn't work.
Haha that's great! Aslan's voice is perfect, as is the Witch's looks. Who's narrating, the professor?
By the way, if you wern't happy with VDT before you see this, you will be if you imagine the ABC version.
LOL Exactly!!! The modern films look like pure magic compared to this!
wow…………………that was………….Wow….why did they make Aslan yell at Lucy? BBC is deluxe compared to this
It is, as C.S Lewis foretold, buffoonery and nightmare.
Amen to that!
Great find. I didn't even know that these existed. It's too bad there isn't more of it. Does anyone know where we can find the first episode that's also still in existence?
This just looks like a theatrical play that has been filmed. If you look at it like that, it's not so bad. But it does make one grateful for the modern, hi-tech adaptations of today. I actually kind of like the narrator (Digory perhaps?), and the acting was excessive but interesting. The dissonant Twighlight Zone-like sixties music was an entertaining touch too.
I hope I'm not the only one who laughed hysterically at that line. Who would have ever thought of an interpretation of Aslan like THAT? He's got to be just about the scariest, most belligerent "good" character I've ever seen in a children's movie. The only explanation I can think of is that they were desperately trying to find a way to make a man dressed up in a ridiculously silly lion's costume sound authoritative and powerful.
I mean I'm "glad" I'm not the only one who found that funny. Boy, that was a bizarre characterization of Aslan!
They should have borrowed the Wizard of Oz Lion costume from MGM. HeHeHeHe.
He's not a tame lion… he's a bi-polar one.
And people complain about how bad the special effects in the BBC version were. Everything is in costumes.
on one hand, it's awesome to find this! On the other hand– I don't trust myself to watch it. I'd end up laughing I'm afraid… and I don't want to laugh at Lewis' work 🙁
The Witch was okay (from what I *did* see)… but Peter– wow… William Mosley is awesome vs. this 😉
And I like the delicate uneasiness that LWW handled Edmund being reconciled with Aslan and his siblings after he was rescued from the Witch =)
But this is still neat! It's like a piece of history! 😀
you're still not going to get me to confess that BBC is a great version 🙂 No offense to you who like it, I hope! I just can't stand BBC. If I laugh at the movie because it's cheesy, I'll just read the books 😉 No offense, really! i'm not trying to be rude to you who like it. But I really don't like those versions 🙁 And it's not because I have to be spoonfed 'CG'. It just doesn't work with Narnia. The puppets blare out at you: 'this is fake. this is *only* a story. This is *NOT* real.' And it makes you remember that none of it's real, and that's hard to work with for fantasy…
But who here thinks that Patrick Stewart would make a KNOCK-OUT Puddleglum?! He played Ebenezer Scrooge, and I *think* could could very well pull off a perfect Puddleglum! 🙂 He'd be SUCH the grandfather/mentor/uncle/protector sort of 'wise' person that would be perfect for our Puddleglum!
If they green light SC, I'm going to try and get a hold of Apted somehow and TRY and ASK him very kindly if he would consider Patrick Stewart to play the role! 🙂 He'd be SO perfect! 🙂 Someone with dignified class! 🙂 I'm afraid if he was cast with Johny Depp or something that people would take Puddleglum as some sort of 'joke'. Jack Sparrow was a complete joke.
And Puddleglum wasn't a joke at all. He was so endearing. Johnny Depp would ruin that endearment sweetness that Puddleglum has =) I think Patrick could pull it off! 'beam me up, number one!' RotFL, the only problem is our family would be pulling of Star Trek jokes 🙂
I have to agree with you about the 'puppets'. I have not seen the BBC versions in quite some time, but Reepicheep was pretty awful!!! He was well over three feet tall, as I recall, and Aslan looked….well, like a puppet. I thought that the acting performances were quite good, however, ESPECIALLY Puddleglum and Jill 🙂
Too true!! I only havea minute love for the BBC ones cause thats what brought me to Narnia long before I found out there was more to it! But,however,they will NEVER EVER compare to the realness that the newer ones bring! I feel
the beauty of it more with the newer ones that I felt in the books! Older ones, including the cartoons, will not come close!
Having seen every version of "LWW," I am glad to have at least seen a piece of this. 😉
I would rank them like this, although I've only seen a couple minutes of this version, in fairness to it:
1. Disney/Walden– definitely the best version ever made.
2. BBC–Like others, this version introduced me to Narnia. So for that reason, I will always love it. The Stone Table scene still makes me cry.
3. The Cartoon: Not horrible, but still pretty strange. It has my least favorite version of The White Witch. She is very annoying. "Fastah!! Fastah! I can see them fool, get this sled going!!" Sigh.
4. This version here– I did not like the way Aslan yelled "Work against the Emperor's magic." But in fairness to it, I would watch the whole series if I could. 😉
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Stupid youtube!!!
I did not even know this existed till now!
LWW has been adapted into moving pictures so many times. Will The Horse and His Boy ever be?
Yes, you are right. It seems that LWW has been produced multiple times, but none of the other books, as if nobody knew they existed. If it wasn't for BBC then Walden we wouldn't have anything on PC, let alone the present VDT. Like you, I want to see Horse and his boy made, and I fear it never will be.
Wow! This is amazing….so old and yet somehow it was uncovered. Edmund actually reminds me of Skandar when you see him from farther away… 🙂
This would be really interesting to watch!!! Unfortunately, like others, my Youtube is not cooperating with me =P
How do I know your promises will be kept? RAWRRARARRAR!
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!! I haven't even seen the video, but the picture I got from reading this made me laugh SO hard!!!! Hahahaha!!!!! =P 🙂
Oh wow, fascinating! Wouldn't it be great if more of these were found? 😀
I thank goodness that technology has improved so much over the years; I wouldn't have liked to watch that quality!
you wouldn't have known the difference. you would have been young, had never seen anything better and wouldn't have known a more realistic version existed, so you would have enjoyed it.
That's amazing! very cool-and naturally the special efects are terrible…it adds to the character.
These are very cool clips!
it's like finding a piece of lost Narnian history, isn't it?!?! 😀
I *LOVED* the narrator (Professor) guy! That was a pretty clever touch to add and still 'follow' the book. I didn't get much farther than Mrs. Beaver telling the kids Ed was back. I might end up watching both vids now. Everyone seems to think they're kind of interesting! 🙂
Thanks for sharing. It's an interesting find, even if it is rather dull. I thought they got the look of the White Witch down pat though and I liked how they interpreted Aslan's leopard sentry guards. The rest is forgetable.
Dawn Treader is no longer, in my opinion, the worst Narnia film production.
ha ha, kinda makes you grateful , doesn't it? !
Wow this is old!! Ans the music is annoying!
AGH!!!! It keeps pausing!
*geeks out* Never in a million years did I ever think I would see even a part of these! I want to see the next episode.
At least he isn't tame!
I like that they kept so much of Lewis' original narration; it wouldn't work in a modern theatrical film, but it's a basic part of the books that hasn't made the transition to a visual medium since. Plus, the actor doing the narration (is he also the Professor?) is fabulous. I would love to hear him narrate Narnian audio books … mmmm.
Aslan's voice is great.
And the White Witch is good too.
Really, if you think of it as being more like a play filmed for the benefit of posterity, it's quite nice.
I'd love to hear douglas gresham narrate the books!!
Dude. . . .this is SO OLD AND BOREING!!!!!!! hahaha. . .
WOOOOWWWWWW. That was pretty lame. Aslan's roar– ha ha! I don't care what people say about keeping the wording the same as the book and all that… That WAS NOT Narnia. 😛
I think I need to watch the 2005 LWW again now… 🙂
"All Narnia will be overturned, and perish in a holocaust" ?
That's an interesting wording.
Wow… they made Aslan yell at Lucy… 🙁
he yells at her in the books. who else thought it was harsh when he growled at her for staying too long with edmund and pushed her to go heal others at the end battles in LWW?
Okay…so…other than a much better Aslan, a less girly Edmund and a really unnecessary narrative by the professor, this is very close in costumes and acting to the BBC versions. The Mrs. Beaver costume is practically the same 🙂
Sorry, I just don't see it. The Beaver costumes are for the most part much better in this version. At least they look like beavers rather than furry pine-cones from the BBC series.
Judging from the comments, this forum is apparently filled with kids and teens. Well, you won't be able to appreciate what I'm going to say, but as far as I'm concerned, I'll take this version and the animated one over Adamson's any day. Of course there are no special effects; this was 1967 and done like a play for TV. And for all that — putting aside Aslan screaming at Lucy — it's great! It feels a lot closer to the book than the movie-version, which, unfortunately, was too light, too kiddie-friendly, and lacking in any sense of gravitas or depth, which, for all its cheesy costumes, this one has in spades. Disney's Aslan may look like a lion (and not a Bert Lahr knockoff), but he had no bite. And Lewis' dialogue was rarely to be found (e.g., why was the "Emperor over the Sea" not mentioned?) And while I love Tilda Swinton, she's NOT Lewis' White Witch. This one looks like Pauline Baynes' illustration walked off the page. Anyone notice the vocal similarities between her and the actress who played her in the animated version? Adamson and the producers took too many liberties and just didn't know how to craft a powerful film from a powerful book. What resulted was tepid and mediocre. It needed an experienced English director with English sensibilities. Adamson upped his game quite a bit with PC (which at least justified any changes), and the new film's great. But if you want to understand why only half of the audience turned up for PC, look no further than the weaknesses of the first film.
As well, it's what it is. Shame, though, that the rest of this version is lost. 🙁
I feel that it needs a real christian director and writer, who will make no apologies for the christian subtext. Most english directors these days are atheists and choke on the christian message. The first movie succeeded because it was gentle and took more time for characterization. PC had a full audience, then dropped off because word of mouth killed it. It had no character development, unbalanced ratio of battles to personal interaction, and deadly slow development of the telemarines- chunks of time spent on muttering accents and dingy surroundings.. I couldnt decipher the plot till the second time i saw it, having never read the book. when it ended the first time i saw PC, I just sat there baffled for 10 mins. The whole thing was just a dreary mess. There's a way to depict a dingy situation without choking off the audience watching it. I think the box office speaks for itself as to which movie of the first two was better made.
I have a 30-minute introductory documentary that BBC made in 1988 to screen the week before they screened the first of the 6 episodes of The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe. Its content included looking at other productions and talking to Trevor Preston, and it had a couple of clips out of this tape. Seeing so much more of it made me cringe at the deliberate updating to the 1960s, although it's also quaint historically. It was originally going to be a Narrator with bits of acting, and seems to have had the acting extended.
That is just awsome to bad the rest has been lost.
More thankful than ever for the three GREAT films we have. I have seen Dawn Treader twice and will see it again. It is exciting and moving. I wept each time. I wonder if we are too picky and hard to please if we end up more like Eustace Clarence Scrubb before being "de-dragoned" instead of being true Narnians! While driving home from the theater I asked my daughters what they liked best. One said the transformation of Eustace into a good boy and the others said they liked it when Aslan said, “You must know me by another name in your world.” Needless to say I teared up. What a film! What an adventure!
I fully expected to weep and even brought a hankercheif, but it all blew by so fast it didn't even stir up any emotion in me. Let's hope they put out an extended version in the dvd release, cause this looks like they went out and chopped out a half hour just to crank out more showings at the theatre. I had zero time to get emotionally involved.
That's almost how I felt the first time I saw it, but the 2nd time I didn't spend the whole film trying to judge it and just sat back and tried to enjoy it for what it was. That time, the emotion got to me. I think part of the reason some of us feel there was a lack of emotion in the film is due to our own pre-determined bias. You have to see it at least one more time to know for sure whether you made the right judgment on it…
Wow, I just looked this up on Youtube yesterday because I saw FK mention this version on the forums… =P
Figures it stops at the good part…
Ok I'll admit it, I miss the old black and white TV shows… (and I wasn't even born yet when they were airing!)
Wow. That was some scream. No, he's not tame at all. He looked like he was going to bite Lucy's head off–literally!
wow, cool find!
what?! with all due respect, liberty! those are old films of narnia, probably in my parents's parents days!
Okay, that's terrible. 😛 I stopped watching after three minutes. I liked the narrator, though.
How far filmmaking has come! No wonder C.S. Lewis didn't want film adaptions!
je trouve que c est moins bien que maintenant et c est grisoulli
We fuss and argued about the changes made from the book in today's Narnia films, even then, they made changes so ridiculously so.
`
Take 2… Wow!!!! They are definitely sticking to the book with that one! And I agree – Aslan's voice does sound a lot like Aslan in LWW and PC – Disney and VoDT- Fox. How things have changed!
These are better than VODT! ;))
Wow. I didn't think there was a version of LWW before the BBC.
My Mom was 7 when that was made. Poor Lucy she got yelled at!