Androcles And The Lion (1952)

A Christian tailor (Alan Young) with a virago wife (Elsa Lanchester) is captured by Roman soldiers and sent along with a group of fellow Christians to the Colosseum to be fed to the lions for the entertainment of the Romans. Based on the play by George Bernard Shaw and directed by Chester Erskine without much passion. Shaw's 1912 play is one of his lesser efforts and this film adaptation strays away from the Shaw text, placing an emphasis on broad comedy but nonetheless, still a talky piece rather than a cinematic one. The film is set on the soundstages of RKO and shot in B&W rather than in Technicolor, which might have given the film some much needed sheen. It can't seem to make up its mind if it wants to be a lavish big screen epic or an intimate treatise on Christianity. Young as Androcles is a little too precious but Robert Newton as a hulk of a Christian fighting his bad tempered impulses is very good. Produced by Gabriel Pascal who did better by Shaw with his film adaptations of PYGMALION and CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA. With Jean Simmons and Victor Mature as the dull lovers, Maurice Evans, Alan Mowbray, Jim Backus, Reginald Gardiner, Gene Lockhart and John Hoyt.