Where to watch Out of Africa (1985)

Trivia & production notes

• Meryl Streep secured the lead role of Karen Blixen after showing up to her meeting with director Sydney Pollack wearing a low-cut blouse and push-up bra, as he had initially questioned whether she had enough sex appeal for the part.
• Klaus Maria Brandauer was Sydney Pollack's only choice to play Bror Blixen, creating a casting crisis when his schedule appeared to conflict with production.
• Robert Redford was cast as Finch Hatton over Jeremy Irons because Pollack believed Redford possessed a charm that no British actor could deliver.
• The film used descendants of Kikuyu tribe members mentioned in Karen Blixen's book, including the grandson of chief Kinyanjui who played his own grandfather.
• The steam locomotive featured in train sequences was non-functional, so a hidden diesel locomotive inside a boxcar pushed the train while steam and smoke effects were added for authenticity.
• Castle Rising near King's Lynn in England doubled as early 20th-century rural Denmark for scenes depicting Karen Blixen's return home for medical treatment.
• John Barry's score for Out of Africa won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and ranks fifteenth on the American Film Institute's list of top 25 American film scores.
• The original 1985 soundtrack release contained 12 tracks totaling just over 33 minutes, while a 2024 Intrada Records expansion grew to 2 CDs with the full score and alternates.
• Out of Africa was the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1985 in the United States and Canada, earning $87 million domestically and $227.5 million worldwide.
• The final two narrations in the film were taken directly from Karen Blixen's book Out of Africa, while the others were written to imitate her lyrical writing style.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Out of Africa (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.