Maya

One of the timeless stories about working through difficult relationships with parents and importance of friend ship. Hugh was a remarkable hunter who had moved to India because of his passion for hunting and the enormous jungles of India and wild life. Then some thing happens and Hugh loses his spark and also his will to hunt. He had been separated from his wife who was living in America with her parents. And movie starts with Hugh's son Terry coming to India and Hugh meeting his son for the very first time . The mother has passed away and the boy arrives in India completely unaware that his dad was no longer the star of hunting . India - a new land and culture. As the movie progresses we see how hard it is for the father and son to bond and eventually the love for his son compels Hugh to pick up hunting again. The boy who has lived a very protected life so far, experiences the adventures of the jungle while befriending a native boy and accompanying him in his mission to take the sacred elephant to a save haven- the temple. Together they fight greed and danger and come out victorious. I liked the story then - when I first saw it and I like it now too. Though I think at times with all the advances technology has made , a remake of Maya would be a wonderful idea.

There is no online summary, as opposed to a comment, so I offer the following:

Teenager Terry Bowen arrives in India to live with his father, a famous hunter. When he finds out that his father, who has reluctantly accepted his presence, is a supposed coward after a hunting accident, he runs away. He befriends a local boy who is on a pilgrimage with an elephant (Maya) and its white elephant offspring. They go through many travails as Terry's father searches the countryside for him.

The best thing about Maya is the exotic location cinematography in India, the film really serves as a great advertisement for tourism to that land. The story here though is kind of weak and at times makes little sense.

Clint Walker is the lead though most of the film concentrates on his son Jay North and Sajid Khan who is trying to get a mother elephant named Maya and her white baby elephant to some pilgrimage location. Sajid Khan was accompanying his dad on that location, the what and why of the pilgrimage is a mystery, but the father dies and Sajid has to carry on.

In the meantime young North has arrived in India where his dad who is a famed animal trapper is suffering a crisis of confidence after a nasty bout with a cheetah. Walker has no time for the kid, he's got a pretty young mistress in the house in the person of Sonia Sahni. She looks as exotic as Jean Simmons did in Black Narcissus.

Jay quarrels with Walker and leaves to go back home and then for no discernible reason jumps the train and takes off into the jungle where he meets up with Sajid and the elephants. The boys have to be real careful as the white elephant unlike in our culture is considered a symbol of good luck. Everybody wants that elephant.

North and Khan have a nice Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn kind of relationship in Maya which carries the film along with the beautiful photography. What is hard to grasp is that North is identified as having grown up in Wyoming. Now granted Wyoming isn't India, but it's pretty woodsy out there with a lot of wild animals. You'd think a kid growing up there would display more sense than Jay does.

The film was a minor success and spawned a short lived television series which became a gay classic. Walker's character was eliminated in that one and the film was about Jay and Sajid searching for North's missing dad with the elephant Maya. When they aged those couple of years as teenagers the relationship was so different. Same kind of dialog and situations, but it came out as gay.

The film is not bad and the story is timeless and a good family film if you can get past some glaring plot weaknesses.

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!

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.