The Lion Man

I was the seven-year-old boy, Bobby Fairy, who played Lord Chatham's son in early life. With admitted bias, I see the movie for its time, genre and budget, as a pretty good adventure film. There are a few places where the film itself has deteriorated since 1936.

The picture has a strong Edgar Rice Burroughs plot and the lead actors are believable. Jon Hall's athletic training shows in fight scenes.

The movie's exterior scenes were all shot on a vacant desert area near Yuma, Arizona. The cast and crew stayed in a hotel in Yuma and rode by bus into the desert area each day in the very early morning to take advantage of the first light. The bus was followed by trucks carrying camels, horses and equipment.

Acting in this adventure movie was very exciting for a little boy. In preparing for one scene I fell from a camel. With difficulty, the director finally persuaded me to be remounted with my actor father.

I was accompanied to the Arizona location by an adult escort (my real father) and a tutor required by California law.

My agent had given me a stage name (Bobby Fairy) only slightly different from my real name, Bobby Fairey, when I was 7. I am now (2012) 83, a semi-retired lawyer and may be the only surviving member of the cast. Robert A. (Bob) Fairey

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this hidden treasure that I thought was long gone. I am so thankful that someone rescued it from the vault it was hidden in! My father was the little "Lion Man" - and I thought he did a FANTASTIC job. He told me that they filmed the entire movie in 3 weeks - and in that time he had to learn all his lines (several which were cut in this version, probably due to the condition of the original film), learn how to ride (and fall off of) a camel, and deal with the Arizona desert. His father was also an extra in the movie - one of the "Arabs" on camel back. Amazingly, I think this movie seems more raw and real than some other more current "Tarzan" like adaptations - because the fight scenes are hand-to-hand in the sand, the tents are more like what was really used at the time, and because my Dad did such a good job!

Well what did I expect? I keep on watching these old Poverty Row productions so I should really know the score by now. This adventure film is more or less business as usual down in the Poverty Row back-lot. It's a film full of promise but little delivery. Much like most of these old programme filling B-movies from the 30's. This one has an American boy being left to be brought up by a lion keeping shaman after his dad has been murdered by a villainous sheik. He grows up to be a noble saviour of downtrodden folks in Arabia - the Lion Man of the title, so if you expected this to be a film about a half-man half-lion monster (i.e. me) then prepare to be sadly underwhelmed. It's sort of Tarzan in the desert if you like. Except the film-makers kind of forget to load the thing with much action, instead there's a lot of chat and not too much in the way of excitement. Which is a shame really because The Lion Man had a passable chance at becoming relatively entertaining. But, unfortunately, for the most part it's a little tedious.

In addition to his "Tarzan" series, the prolific Edgar Rice Burroughs did write many other books, although, aside from the popular "At the Earth's Core", few of these have been filmed. One exception is the novel entitled "The Lad and the Lion", brought to the screen as "The Lion Man" (1936), an over-talkative, static, old-hat, slow-moving and rather dull movie, despite being filmed on real desert locations. Actually "movie" is the wrong word. The narrative doesn't move but proceeds at a snail's pace in an abrupt series of jerks. For instance, at least five characters are given elaborate opening scenes and then just disappear. Even more frustrating for the keen movie fan, are the characters who make an impression of sorts (like the lass who plies Hall with drugged wine) but are enacted by players who are not credited! The credited thespians generally come off worse than the unknowns. One exception is Australian actress Finis Barton who gives a good account of the kidnapped harem girl who rescues young Master Fairy. Admittedly, most of the cast are saddled with atrocious King James dialogue which has to be heard to be believed! But the way to play this rubbish is tongue-in-cheek, a stratagem which does not seem to have occurred to a single one of the film's roster of no-talent players. Maybe director J.P. McCarthy scotched that idea. Anyway, it's sad to see the lovely Kathleen Burke forced to trade lines with the likes of Richard Carlyle (her dad) and Jon Hall (her suitor). Admittedly, Mr Hall delivers his lines with marginally more conviction than Mr Carlyle, but that is no recommendation.

The original story that inspired The Lion Man was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs and it certainly has some of the same plot premise that his Tarzan character has. The young boy is the son of British explorer Eric Snowden who is the only survivor of a massacre in the desert by a treacherous Arab sheik Ted Adams. Raised by a jungle mystic among a pride of lions he grows up to be Jon Hall.

I suppose Edgar Rice Burroughs counted himself fortunate that his Tarzan series was originally picked up by MGM that Tiffany of studios. This was a cheaply made independent with scant production values and little direction for the human players.

Too bad Burroughs got the short shrift in this cheapie.