Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

ANDROCLES AND THE LION (1952)

George Bernard Shaw’s whimsical take on the old fable about a Christian näif, a lion with a thorn in his paw, and their reencounter at the Roman Coliseum may not be his weakest play, it just seems so in this lame, painfully obvious adaptation. The cast & tech credits don’t look so bad on paper. Well, except for Alan Young, hopelessly over-parted as a holy fool of an Androcles. But the entire production is visually inert, with a cramped stage-bound look that suggests a tv ‘spectacular’ from the ‘50s. There’s a bit of fun seeing Jim Backus (of Mr. Magoo & GILLIGAN’S ISLAND fame) as a hardened Roman Centurion; and catching Victor Mature & Jean Simmons in a dry run for next year’s CinemaScope debut of Christians/Romans/Lions in THE ROBE/’53. Or, you might try to envision the original planned cast of Harpo Marx as a (speaking?) Androcles, with Rex Harrison & Dana Andrews in for Maurice Evans & Victor Mature. Then, again, some things are best left imagined.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Buster Keaton tackles the Androcles fable in less than a minute of footage as a toss-away gag during the Roman section of THREE AGES/’23, his hilarious send-up of D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE/’16.

No comments: