Maya

Adventures in India with Clint Walker

One day little Terry (Jay North) arrives at a busy train station somewhere in India. After his mother's untimely death, he is on the way to his father (Clint Walker), who lives in India and is a famous big game hunter. But no one is at the train station to pick Terry up. Alone, the boy is forced to trudge several kilometers through the jungle to his father's farm. The reception there is also cool; Terry's father has changed a lot. After an argument between father and son, Terry runs away and goes alone into the dangerous jungle. There he meets Raji (Sajid Khan), who is the same age and who is on a special mission with the elephant Maya and her white offspring Primo...

In 1966, Hollywood major MGM released a remarkable adventure film for children. Grief, being left alone and arguments between father and son are the central themes, which are told vividly and credibly from the perspective of a child. And all of this against the beautiful backdrop of India with its bright colors and exotic animals.

The German cameraman Günther Senftleben (1925-1982) achieved amazing things here with his beautiful landscapes and astonishing animal photos. Previously, cameraman Senftleben was responsible for such masterpieces as the West German musical "The Dream of Lieschen Müller" (1961) and the Cinecitta adventure film "Captain Sindbad" (1962) with the unforgettable EUROVISION star Heidi Brühl (1942-1991).

"Maya", as the film is called in the American original, was directed by John Berry and the music was by the Italian film composer Riz Ortolani (Mondo Cane (1962) / La piovra (1984)).

The Indian actor and director I. S. Bohar (1920-1984), who can also be seen from "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), the "Kali Yug" (1963) films and "Death on the Nil" (1978).

Casting the lead role with Western star Clint Walker (1927-2018) was very successful. Seeing that even a guy like a closet can suffer from anxiety disorder and exhaustion depression is very impressive. This film impressively explores unusually deep emotional worlds. And there are also great photos of elephants and tigers.

The rediscovery of this somewhat forgotten animal and adventure film classic is definitely recommended!

North was a wondrous "Dennis the Menace" on TV in the late 50's and early 60's, providing just the right mix of charm and annoyance to bring the ever-aggravating character to life. However, what worked on TV for a character based on a cartoon doesn't necessarily work for a family-geared adventure film. He plays a young boy who is traveling to India to live with his estranged father (Walker) after the death of his mother. To say that he isn't welcomed with open arms is an understatement. Walker barely bothers with him at all as North seems to have upset the balance he had achieved with a curvy live-in housekeeper who wears more jewels to the dinner table than Joan Collins! Another household staff member is downright hostile to North from the start. He gets into various minor scrapes and continues to annoy his father. When they finally send him packing back home to his grandparents, he hops off the train and tries to rough it on his own. He hooks up with an Indian boy (Khan) and the pair attempts to transport two elephants across the country at the behest of Khan's dying father. Meanwhile, Walker and his aide comb half of India trying to find North. Unfortunately, one of the elephants is white and many of the Indians want to seize it for it's good luck qualities. The film has some truly beautiful shots of the authentic Indian landscapes and locales. It's a great benefit that the film was shot on location. Praise for the film just about stops there. North's distinctive and unrealistic sounding voice mixed with his overly clumsy and fidgety body language do a lot to create more unintentional humor than identification with him. Any American plopped into the jungles of India would have trouble, but he seems to be particularly accident-prone. One sequence in a raft over whitewater rapids is screamingly funny! His gee-whiz presentation blended with his "look at me really acting" dramatic stuff is uneasy at best. Walker (perhaps the only man who could actually upstage breathtaking scenery with his own monumental physique and glorious face punctuated by two sky blue eyes) has almost nothing to say or do in the film. His ice cold character makes virtually no sense and his (and others') loyalties and motivations change on a dime with no discernible reason in sight! Either the script is horrible or massive cuts were made somewhere. Hilariously, every other character in the film except 2 or 3 is dubbed by the SAME voice-over actor who thinks he's fooling everyone by adjusting his timbre and inflection slightly. The man is good, but come on! The title refers to one of the elephants (though, oddly, the video box suggests that the story will revolve around a cheetah!) even though the story is really one of self-discovery and relationships with one another. The script is so poorly fleshed out that there is no reason for the happy ending to have occurred. It just exists that way. The seemingly innocuous film is likely to upset several groups of people. For one, the Indians are mostly portrayed as greedy, selfish and stupid. Also, the animals don't appear to have been treated very well during the course of the filming. Then there's the section where North smears mud on himself and passes himself off as Indian with no eyebrows raised by the indigenous people. (As an aside, an elephant is painted white by the filmmakers to pass as a white elephant, then washed off, but purportedly painted grey to pass as a grey elephant for part of the film......Oh forget it!) Finally, if anyone is nervous about nude kids, 15 year old North spends a little while naked from behind. If all these things aren't enough to get some sniffy PC viewers agitated, they must have fallen asleep while viewing which is entirely possible! Recommended only for those who'd like a look at the unspoiled beauties of India and the underrated beauties of Walker.

Relatively good movie, starring the former "Dennis the Menace" star, Jay North. Surprising that North, who was a teenager at the time, had a scene showing his bare backside in a 1960's-era movie. While it isn't unusual to see this in any European movie from any era, it is with a US movie.

I recently watched toy story 3 with my grandson. And having stumbled across Maya, I remembered watching this as a kid. I loved it. In the 60's when there was no animation and real tigers were used for stunts in the fight between the elephant and the tigers - as a kid I was so fascinated. Technology has progressed and amazing new movies are being made for the children. However, this is what children loved to watch in the 60's. Now, having watched it recently, I was re introduced to its beautiful music track. Good one. This movie was much before Indiana Jones and most other adventure films- MGM took its viewers on a fantasy journey of a continent far away and introduced a whole new culture and cross cultural communication. Worth watching. A classic in the genre of jungle adventure.

I remember the charm of this movie as a boy and it hasn't lost it (at least for me). Very nice elephant scenes. Very predictable coming-of-age type plot, but that's not bad! Although this was a more serious role for North as opposed to the "Dennis the Menace" TV programme & "Zebra in the Kitchen", etc., he performed it very well. If you like this movie, you'll also like "A Boy Ten Feet Tall."