The Lady or the Tiger?

I saw this film in an English class way back in Junior High. Even back then, my critical instincts told me I hated it because I thought the "you make up your own ending" stuff was a cop out.

To this day, I feel like if you write a story and if you can't make up your own ending, you shouldn't have started writing in the first place. But I understand in retrospect that this story is told to younger kids in order to develop their instincts in critical debate and analysis. Entire college classes are given over to spending weeks on end dissecting one story or novel; The lady or the tiger? is a good place to give younger students a starting off point into such things.

But the film, dear lord, the film! The story is told through narration, and is fashioned out of odd quasi-futuristic visuals that took this story from the era of knights and kings and stuff into the world of fascistic rulers. It kind of reminded me of what Julie Taymor did with her adaptation of Titus, or George Lucas' original student film version of THX 1138. The visuals and disquieting music all collide together to form a grim tone poem of sorts.

Considering the time this film was made, it's a pretty daring depiction of a simple story. But, then again, I just saw this story referenced on a Simpsons rerun (the one where Bart and his buddies sneak into Shelbyville), so maybe the story is more influential than I thought.

I don't know how or where this movie exists anymore. I'm sure it languishes deep in some educational film vault somewhere. In an era when just about anything warrants a DVD re release, I suppose it could see the light of day again on some kind of compilation. I wonder if I'll ever see it again.

There is an alternative version of this done in the 1950's which I have been unable to locate a second time.Still,I think the ingenious solution is worth sharing with the readers.

It seems that,in the revised and greatly extended account, the King is Herod the Great,the Princess is his stepdaughter, Salome,and the other woman is Miriam,daughter of the High Priest.

Well,with Salome in the lead role there doesn't seem much doubt(despite her fleeting good intentions) that her boyfriend is headed for the tiger.But,as it develops t she and her lover prove a genuinely well matched pair.

He pulls both doors open simultaneously and beats it to safety while the tiger devours the innocent maiden.

However,Herod is so outraged at this lack of good sportsmanship that he decrees the cad be forthwith to taken Calvary and crucified alongside a second malefactor and Jesus of Nazarath.

It was set in modern-times. (They had cars.) But still with ancient Roman brutality. This gave it a sort of post-apocalyptic feel. The characters did not speak, only the narrator did. Short and simple, reasonably well done. Good for schoolkids.