Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we looked at a horror movie featuring bunny suit wearing chainsaw murderer. This time, let’s examine a movie about elephants. And Nazis.
According to IMDB’s surprisingly informative user review, Elephant Fury has a rather interesting history:
Sensation director and actor Harry Piel made the film “Panik” in the period 1940-1943 that was banned by the Promi: the animals running loose from a zoo after a bombardment reminded in 1943 too much of the real bombardments and in Berlin indeed one day the animals from the zoo were running through the streets. The only copy of the film was later destroyed by a bombardment also, while after the war the negative was confiscated by the Russians. In 1951/2 Piel was able to reclaim the negative, shot some additional material and edited a new version under a new title.
By all accounts, it’s not particularly good, but the entire thing is available on YouTube (embedded above) and the short description is tantalizing: “Wild Animals Escape Zoo to attack Nazis”. Note that the animals do not escape the zoo and attack Nazis. They escape to attack Nazis. Motivation is important, even to animal actors.