Androcles and the Lion (1952)

I assume back in his day, the Brits thought that George Bernard Shaw was incredibly brilliant and droll for concocting the play "Androcles and the Lion". However, despite Shaw being held in great esteem today as then, I couldn't believe how awful this film was. Perhaps the translation to the big screen was at fault--perhaps Shaw himself just didn't age well with this story. All I know is that I hated everything about this horrible story of the early Christians. Heck, it was so bad, I assume the film did much to encourage the cause of atheism the world over. Yes, it was THAT bad.When the film begins, you know you are in trouble for two reasons. First, the background paintings are incredibly fake looking and the studio seemed to do nothing to make them look better. Second, and a far more serious problem, is the god-awful dialog. Again and again, the dialog between Alan Young and his wife, Elsa Lanchester, made me cringe--and it was clearly SUPPOSED to be funny. Unfortunately, this same problem continued throughout the film--with horribly corny humor and incredibly anachronistic and stupid dialog uttered by everyone. It was painful it was so bad.The bottom line is that although I hate stilted Biblical costume dramas (such as "David and Bathsheba"), I learned tonight that I hate comedic Biblical costume dramas even more. The film has wasted the talents of everyone associated with it and the likes of John Hoyt, Victor Mature and Jean Simmons clearly were given third-rate material. As for Young, he was right in his element. Avoid unless you are a masochist.

An adaptation of a lesser George Bernard Shaw play. It supposedly doesn't "get" the original play, at least according to some other reviews I perused. I'm not even sure what the point of it all was (perhaps that, throughout all times, Christians have been annoyingly self-righteous, but at least during Roman days, you could feed them to lions), and it's a pretty big mess. However, I have to admit, almost grudgingly, that I sort of enjoyed it, perhaps just because of its weirdness. Alan Young plays Androcles, a comedic character with a hen-pecking wife (Elsa Lanchester, really playing it up - I have to wonder why they didn't have her carry a rolling pin). Because of his apparent friendship with a lion (from whose paw, of course, he pulled a thorn), people accuse him of witchcraft, and he is suggested to the Caesar (Maurice Evans) as a potential sacrifice. Also among those sacrifices are Jean Simmons, a beautiful young Christian, and Robert Newton, a pious warrior. Young is amusing in his way, and Evans is quite amusing, but the real reason to watch this film are for Simmons and Newton, both of whom are wonderful. Victor Mature is the least successful member of the cast, playing an army captain who falls for Simmons. He looks as if he's about to have a stroke most of the time. Alan Young is perhaps most famous for playing Wilbur on Mr. Ed, but to my generation he's even better known as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in stuff like Mickey's Christmas Carol and, of course, DuckTales. He's in his 90s nowadays and is still doing Scrooge McDuck.

Androcles is a devout Christian, all creatures are friends of the Earth. During an encounter with a lion, who is roaring in pain, he removes a huge thorn from the beasts' paw, thus creating a friend for life. A short time after the incident, Androcles and a number of other Christians are arrested and condemned to death in the arena. They are to die by fighting with gladiators or eaten alive by lions, is there any chance that Androcles and his companions can survive their fate?During my viewing of this film I was eating some soup and bread, I literally nearly choked on the bread and expelled the soup via my nose! Such is the hammy comedy on offer here, Androcles And The Lion, adapted from a George Bernard Shaw play, is an enjoyable picture if one is prepared for just what a ham sandwich it is. The cast, featuring Victor Mature, Jean Simmons, Alan Young and Robert Newton, play it as cardboard cutouts {Simmons possibly the only one taking it serious}, with the technical aspects so bad I dare you not to laugh out loud as Young dances with a man in a Lion suit!!Don't take it serious and you should be OK, and I'm certainly not annoyed that I sat thru it, but I would rather wrestle a Lion and two Tigers before I had to sit and watch it again! 4/10

I remember this movie fondly as a very young child. The reviewer may have seen this film many years later, but at the time, it was a believable and wonderful film to watch. I was moved to tears (believe it or not) by the plot and the main character (Alan Young) who later took the role he was most famous for opposite that stupid horse on Mr. Ed. The film, however, is the thing I remember and will always hold close to my heart. It's really too bad that the nice bubbles we hold close get burst so easily by people how have no clue they are even doing such a disservice. It's OK though. It's why I don't read or listen to reviews and I will continue to avoid them in the future.