The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams *** (1974, Dan Haggerty, Don Shanks, Marjorie Harper, Lisa Jones, Denver Pyle) – Classic Movie Review 3277

Dan Haggerty stars in director Richard Friedenberg’s 1974 wildlife family Western adventure as grizzled woodsman trapper James ‘Grizzly’ Adams, who is mistakenly accused of the crime of murder.

Fleeing from bounty hunters, he treks off to the mountains and becomes best buddies with an equally grizzly orphaned bear cub whom he rescues, adopts and calls Ben.

Haggerty is ideal in the role he will always be remembered for, and it is a warm-hearted movie sugar coated with sentimentality wrapped around lots of very attractive scenery, with external scenes filmed at Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada. Also in the cast are Don Shanks, Marjorie Harper, Denver Pyle and Lisa Jones.

A popular TV series followed (1977-1978) and the TV movies Once Upon a Starry Night (1978) and The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982). Sequels: Legend of the Wild (1981), Grizzly Adams The Legend Continues [The Legend of Grizzly Adams] (1990) with Gene Edwards, Grizzly Mountain (1997) and Escape to Grizzly Mountain (2000).

John Huston plays real-life 19th-century trapper Western character Grizzly Adams in his own 1972 film The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.

Dan Haggerty died of cancer on January 15 2016, aged 74.

The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams creator, producer Charles E Sellier Jr, died on January 31 2011, aged  67.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3277

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