Androclès et le lion

After his gargantuan Technicolor folly 'Caesar and Cleopatra' nearly bankrupted Lord Rank, producer Gabriel Pascal ended his film career with a whimper at RKO with a final, much cheaper Shavian adaptation in black & white.

It's not really any more stagy than the earlier epic, and provides the satisfaction of seeing a radiant Jean Simmons promoted from a bit player in the former film to the female lead. Elsa Lanchester is a scream as the hero's nagging wife, Robert Newton as Ferrovious, described as having "the strength of an elephant and the temper of an angry bull" is fearsome even when turning the other cheek. And it's not every day you see Jim Backus playing a centurion.

A famously bad movie of a minor Shaw play, Androcles and the Lion isn't bad so long as one doesn't approach it expecting a sparkling and witty adaptation along the lines of Major Barbara. To be fair to producer Garbriel Pascal, who loved Shaw's work dearly, and director Chester Erskine, an experienced theatre man, the play wasn't that good to start with. In trying to make their picture look like a spectacle, and casting hunky Victor Mature in a major role, Pascal and Erskine at least give the viewer something pleasing and familiar to look at. The presence of Jean Simmons doesn't hurt, either, though her padrone, studio chief Howard Hughes, was in the process of inadvertantly wrecking her American career with inferior movies.

In the roles as early Christians, Alan Young and Robert Newton make a terrific pair, and ought to have been co-starred again. Mr. Young's endearingly innocent, child-like and effeminate Androcles makes a fascinating contrast with Newton's bellowing, hyper-virile Ferrovius, and one wonders, if one adds to the mix the mere presence of Victor Mature, was going on subliminally in the minds of Pascal and Erskine when they cast this film. (Young fared far better with the animal kingdom some years later on television, as friend and companion of the irascible and unpredictable equine, Mr. Ed.)

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 and the Lion" is a film adaptation of a 1912 play by George Bernard Shaw. The Irish playwright and author wrote in various mediums with humor and often biting social commentary. He was an avowed socialist and atheist. But, during much of his later life he expounded on a belief in an advanced state of society and being. He thought of it coming about by evolution.

This film and play is a whimsical version of a tale about an early Christian tailor who is taken prisoner and sent to Rome to be tortured and killed in the coliseum. Most people know the tale, so it doesn't come as a surprise. The humorous jabs at religion, history and government enliven the original tale. One might imagine that the play went over well with audiences in the early 20th century, yet Shaw's laborious prologues or narrations afterwards wore out audiences with his vaunting of socialism and lambasting of everything else. Much of Shaw's intent was to parody the early Christian persecution with the treatment by the British government of the common folk of his day. He says so directly in his Afterword to the play. That was Shaw's vehicle to get on his soapbox for socialism.

But, by the mid-20th century, the allure of socialism was fast fading. And, with the memories of war with heathen enemies still fresh, the spoofing of Christianity had lost its appeal. The film flopped at the box office. Many decades later, just some of the script retains its humor, and the film seems slow and quite dated.

The spoofery of early Christianity in the pagan Roman Empire is apparent at the start. As the captives are being marched off to Rome, they sing "Onward Christian Soldiers." The popular English hymn was written and composed in the late 19th century. The early 20th century audiences of Shaw's play would have known that.

The film has a cast of prominent Hollywood and English actors of the time. A couple of other reviewers give some history about the film delays and cast changes after shooting began. So, Rex Harrison, Dana Andrews, George Sanders and Harpo Marx aren't in the film. Victor Mature is a Roman captain in charge of the Christian prisoners. He is attracted to one of the very joyful (and beautiful) Christians, Lavinia, played by Jean Simmons. Can anyone possibly guess how that might turn out?

Elsa Lanchester, Reginald Gardiner, Gene Lockhart, Alan Mowbray, Jim Backus and Strother Martin are some more of the well-known actors of the day. But the person who steals the show and every scene he is in is Robert Newton as Ferrovius. His role and performance are the bulk of the humor in this film. It's solely for his performance that I give this film six stars. His humor of restraint is very funny, while his lines also convey an accurate quality of the early martyrs that people have admired over the centuries. One wonders if Shaw realized that he was as much honoring the early martyrs as he was poking fun at their cause.

Here are some favorite lines from the film.

Spintho, "Christianity is very contagious, captain. You never can tell where it will strike next. We want to be certain that it does not strike our valiant soldiers... and their officers."

Spintho, "The enemy within is just as dangerous as the enemy without, captain."

Spintho, "Her name is Lavinia. I envy the lion." Captain, "Which lion?" Spintho, "The one that will eat her."

Lavinia, "If I don't behave, I shall be thrown to the lions. And if I do behave I shall be thrown to the lions, just the same. Is that what you mean?"

Centurion, "Now, remember that you're a Christian. You gotta return good for evil."

Androcles, "Easy, Ferrovius, easy. You broke the last man's jaw." Ferrovius, "Yes, but I saved his soul. What matters a broken jaw?"

Androcles, "Let him go, brother. Our religion forbids you to strike him." Ferrovious, "On the contrary, it commands me to strike him. How could he turn the other cheek if he's not first struck on one cheek?"

Editor of the Gladiators, "Caesar will go down in history as the emperor who eliminated these cranks. Hail Caesar!" Emperor Antoninus (Caesar), "On the contrary. I'm more likely to be remembered as the man who did more to perpetuate them." Editor of Gladiators, "You, Caesar?" Emperor Antoninus, "I dare say I am doing more to spread Christianity than all their preachers, missionaries and Gospel writers put together. I shouldn't be surprised if finally I wind up as one of their heroes." Editor of Gladiators, "Caesar jests of course." Emperor Antoninus, "Caesar does not jest. I wager that for every Christian that dies in the bloody sand, two new ones leave the coliseum." Editor of Gladiators, "Perhaps then, Caesar should change his tactics." Emperor Antoninus, "Impossible. I am a subject of history and I must submit to its inevitable course. It is my destiny to fan the fires of Christianity by offering them martyrdom in the arena."

Androcles, "The coliseum! I never thought I'd live to see it."

Emperor Antoninus, "Metellus, you see now the disadvantages of two much severity. These people have no hope, therefore there's nothing to restrain them from saying whatever they like to. They're almost as important as the gladiators."

Ferrovius, "I will not fight. I will die. Better to stand with the archangels than with the Praetorian Guard." Emperor Antoninus, "I cannot believe that the archangels, whoever they may be, would not prefer to be recruited form the Praetorian Guard."

In reference to a previous comment, the Lion's name, Tommy, comes from the original text of Shaw's play at the end of Act II. Androcles also talks baby talk to the Lion while he is removing the thorn from his paw in the Prologue (or first scene) of the play. Also I think Victor Mature does a pretty good job as the Captain, although some might be put off by the clash of his accent and acting style with the rest of the mostly British cast. However, Mature's style is well suited to the no-nonsense, pragmatic officer trying desperately to save the patrician Lavinia from being sacrificed in the arena. He tells her to lie and recant her Christian beliefs if that is what it takes to save her life; then she can go home and believe whatever she wants. Mature's less polished acting style underscores his amoral pragmatism as well as his worldly desire for Lavinia. He is her temptation, her incentive the deny her faith. That she resists this demonstrates her dedication to her religion.