Androcles and the Lion (1952) on Netflix
A Christian tailor, Androcles, pulls a thorn from a lion's paw in the forest and befriends the beast. Soldiers charge him with sorcery, and he is marched to Rome among Christian prisoners.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.0/101,191 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes43%
Plot summary
In ancient Rome, Androcles is a gentle Christian tailor pursued by Roman soldiers and traveling with Megaera, his complaining wife. Hiding in the forest, they meet a Barbary lion. Megaera faints, but Androcles spots a large thorn sunk deep in the animal's paw and pulls it free, calming the lion with baby talk. He calls it Tommy, and the pair wrestle playfully until soldiers find them and charge him with sorcery. Taken toward Rome with a procession of Christian prisoners, he meets Ferrovius, a recent convert fighting to hold back his violent temper. The Roman captain and Lavinia, a nobly born convert, are drawn to each other.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Androcles and the Lion (1952)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Harpo Marx was signed to play Androcles and shot for five weeks before RKO head Howard Hughes, who had seen Alan Young on television, replaced him in the lead. George Sanders withdrew from the role of Caesar because of another commitment, and José Ferrer was mentioned for Androcles.
- When American audiences did not laugh as much as expected, Howard Hughes withdrew Androcles and the Lion and shot two weeks of new sequences. Alan Young recalled that Hughes added girls in gauze and a real lion, turning it into a "blood-and-guts film".
- Gabriel Pascal's contract with George Bernard Shaw required the film to include at least 75% of Shaw's original dialogue in the screenplay. Because the play was short, additional material was written for the film version.
- Androcles and the Lion was the last film of producer Gabriel Pascal, made two years after the death of his longtime friend and mentor George Bernard Shaw and two years before Pascal's own death.
