Rent Androcles and the Lion (1952)

Classic or Curiosity, a 1952 film based on a George Bernard Shaw play with a real & a fake lion - Androcles and the Lion review by PV

This is great! Sometimes it is hilarious, especially with the fake model lion special effects and backdrop scene for safety when the actors are near the lion!

However, it is also a decent film - a tad twee and preachy, and based on a play by the often very dry and learned Georg Bernard Shaw (who also plundered the classical myths and legends to write the play Pygmalion on which MY FAIR LADY is based). Shaw died in 1950 aged 94 so he was really a Victorian writer - prolific, yes, and some Shavian festivals continue worldwide BUT not much read these days. Some excellent films based on his work, however.

I reality there is NO record of any Christian ever being thrown to the lions. I have visited the Colosseum twice and had informative tours on each visit, and each time the knowledgeable guide told us that, even though there is a big cross planted in there by one of the stands by the church to commemorated Christians killed - they may of course have been executed as criminals there. No Christians thrown to lions, however. No downturned thumb for death either - and rarely did they killed gladiators (only when they did not make the effort really! Losing was fine is you tried, and you survived).

It is true they kept wild animals under the arena and starved them to make them mad hungry and vicious when released into the arena via a system of pulleys and traps.

So I liked this and wonder now when I watch it if the Roman Emperor in The Life of Brian is based on the one here, complete with difficulty pronouncing his R sounds... (it is SO based on the 1977 Robert Powell TV drama Jesus of Nazareth it almost breaks copyright arguably).

A curiosity. I was amused by the figleaves on the naked statues in Rome and yet the real life lion's backends clearly shows, ahem, that which makes him male!

4 stars.