George bernard shaw movies promotion

Alt Film Guide. Classic movies. Gay movies. International cinema. Follow us: altfilmguide. Classic Movies. British Cinema TCM. Andre Soares Published: 15 years ago. He resigned from the land agents, and in March travelled to England to join his mother and Lucy at Agnes's funeral. He never again lived in Ireland, and did not visit it for twenty-nine years.

Initially, Shaw refused to seek clerical employment in London. His mother allowed him to live free of charge in her house in South Kensingtonbut he nevertheless needed an income. He had abandoned a teenage ambition to become a painter, and had not yet thought of writing for a living, but Lee found a little work for him, ghost-writing a musical column printed under Lee's name in a satirical weekly, The Hornet.

Eventually Shaw was driven to applying for office jobs. In the interim he secured a reader's pass for the British Museum Reading Room the forerunner of the British Library and spent most weekdays there, reading and writing. It was abandoned unfinished, as was his first try at a novel. His first completed novel, Immaturitywas too grim to appeal to publishers and did not appear until the s.

Nonetheless, when the Edison firm merged with the rival Bell Telephone Company, Shaw chose not to seek a place in the new organisation. For the next four years Shaw made a negligible income from writing, and was subsidised by his mother. In Shaw began attending meetings of the Zetetical Society, whose objective was to "search for truth in all matters affecting the interests of the human race".

Despite difference of style and temperament, the two quickly recognised qualities in each other and developed a lifelong friendship. Shaw later reflected: "You knew everything that I didn't know and I knew everything you didn't know We had everything to learn from one another and brains enough to do it". Shaw's next attempt at drama was a one-act playlet in French, Un Petit Dramewritten in but not published in his lifetime.

He was not impressed by the SDF's founder, H. Hyndmanwhom he found autocratic, ill-tempered and lacking leadership qualities. Shaw doubted the ability of the SDF to harness the working classes into an effective radical movement and did not join it—he preferred, he said, to work with his intellectual equals. From to Shaw attended the fortnightly meetings of the British Economic Association ; it was, Holroyd observes, "the closest Shaw had ever come to university education".

This experience changed his political ideas; he moved away from Marxism and became an apostle of gradualism. Throughout the s the Fabian Society remained small, its message of moderation frequently unheard among more strident voices. The second of these, "Transition", details the case for gradualism and permeation, asserting that "the necessity for cautious and gradual change must be obvious to everyone".

The mids marked a turning point in Shaw's life, both personally and professionally: he lost his virginity, had two novels published, and began a career as a critic. Shaw's sex life has caused much speculation and george bernard shaw movies promotion among his biographers, but there is a consensus that the relationship with Patterson was one of his few non-platonic romantic liaisons.

The published novels, neither commercially successful, were his two final efforts in this genre: Cashel Byron's Profession written in —83, and An Unsocial Socialistbegun and finished in The latter was published as a serial in To-Day magazine inalthough it did not appear in book form until Cashel Byron appeared in magazine and book form in In andthrough the influence of Archer, Shaw was engaged to write book and music criticism for London papers.

When Archer resigned as art critic of The World inhe secured the succession for Shaw. Of Shaw's various reviewing activities in the s and s it was as a music critic that he was best known. In the version of the Grove Dictionary of Music and MusiciansRobert Anderson writes, "Shaw's collected writings on music stand alone in their mastery of English and compulsive readability.

As at The Worldhe used the by-line "G. By this time he had embarked in earnest on a career as a playwright: "I had rashly taken up the case; and rather than let it collapse I manufactured the evidence". After using the plot of the aborted collaboration with Archer to complete Widowers' Houses it was staged twice in London, in DecemberShaw continued writing plays.

At first he made slow progress; The Philandererwritten in but not published untilhad to wait until for a stage production. Similarly, Mrs Warren's Profession was written five years before publication and nine years before reaching the stage. Shaw's first play to bring him financial success was Arms and the Mana mock- Ruritanian comedy satirising conventions of love, military honour and class.

Gilbert 's style. The success of Arms and the Man was not immediately replicated. Candidawhich presented a young woman making a conventional romantic choice for unconventional reasons, received a single george bernard shaw movies promotion in South Shields in ; [ 76 ] in a playlet about Napoleon called The Man of Destiny had a single staging at Croydon.

In Januaryas a Fabian delegate, Shaw attended the Bradford conference which led to the foundation of the Independent Labour Party. To Your Tents, O Israel! Webb, who chaired the board of trustees appointed to supervise the legacy, proposed to use most of it to found a school of economics and politics. Shaw demurred; he thought such a venture was contrary to the specified purpose of the legacy.

By the later s Shaw's political activities lessened as he concentrated on making his name as a dramatist. At least initially, Shaw took to his municipal responsibilities seriously; [ n 16 ] when London government was reformed in and the St Pancras vestry became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancrashe was elected to the newly formed borough council.

Inas a result of overwork, Shaw's health broke down. The previous year she had proposed that she and Shaw should marry. In the view of the biographer and critic St John Ervine"their life together was entirely felicitous". They retained a London flat in the Adelphi and later at Whitehall Court. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright.

In J. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays. It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland. Synge 's death in Man and Supermancompleted inwas a success both at the Royal Court in and in Robert Loraine 's New York production in the same year.

Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were Major Barbaradepicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the Salvation Army ; [ ] The Doctor's Dilemmaa mostly serious piece about professional ethics; [ ] and Caesar and CleopatraShaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatraseen in New York in and in London the following year.

Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce ". Blanco Posnet was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain the official theatre censor in Englandand was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity.

Androcles and the Liona less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than Blanco Posnetran for eight weeks in September and October Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended.

His co-star then toured with the piece in the US. Inwhen the Boer War began, Shaw wished the Fabians to take a neutral stance on what he deemed, like Home Ruleto be a "non-Socialist" issue. Others, including the future Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonaldwanted unequivocal opposition, and resigned from the society when it followed Shaw.

As the new century began, Shaw became increasingly disillusioned by the limited impact of the Fabians on national politics. After an eccentric campaign, which Holroyd characterises as "[making] absolutely certain of not getting in", he was duly defeated. It was Shaw's final foray into electoral politics.

George bernard shaw movies promotion

Shaw viewed this outcome with scepticism; he had a low opinion of the new prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannermanand saw the Labour members as inconsequential: "I apologise to the Universe for my connection with such a body". In the years after the election, Shaw felt that the Fabians needed fresh leadership, and saw this in the form of his fellow-writer H.

Wellswho had joined the society in February He later wondered whether the Old Gang should have given way to Wells some years earlier: "God only knows whether the Society had not better have done it". He became a founding director, publicist, and in due course a contributor, mostly anonymously. Despite his errant reputation, Shaw's propagandist skills were recognised by the British authorities, and early in he was invited by Field Marshal Haig to visit the Western Front battlefields.

Shaw's 10,word report, which emphasised the human aspects of the soldier's life, was well received, and he became less of a lone voice. In April he joined the national consensus in welcoming America's entry into the war: "a first class moral asset to the common cause against junkerism ". Three short plays by Shaw were premiered during the war.

The Inca of Perusalemwritten inencountered problems with the censor for burlesquing not only the enemy but the British military command; it was performed in at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Shaw had long supported the principle of Irish Home Rule within the British Empire which he thought should become the British Commonwealth. After its suppression by British forces, he expressed horror at the summary execution of the rebel leaders, but continued to believe in some form of Anglo-Irish union.

In How to Settle the Irish Questionhe envisaged a federal arrangement, with national and imperial parliaments. In the postwar period, Shaw despaired of the British government's coercive policies towards Ireland, [ ] and joined his fellow-writers Hilaire Belloc and G. Chesterton in publicly condemning these actions. I rejoice in his memory, and will not be so disloyal to it as to snivel over his valiant death".

Shaw's first major work to appear after the war was Heartbreak Housewritten in —17 and performed in It was produced on Broadway in November, and was coolly received; according to The Times : "Mr Shaw on this occasion has more than usual to say and takes twice as long as usual to say it". Shaw's largest-scale theatrical work was Back to Methuselahwritten in —20 and staged in Weintraub describes it as "Shaw's attempt to fend off 'the bottomless pit of an utterly discouraging pessimism'".

He was now sixty-seven, and expected to write no more plays. This mood was short-lived. In Joan of Arc was proclaimed a saint by Pope Benedict XV ; Shaw had long found Joan an interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between "half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". It was enthusiastically received there, [ ] and at its London premiere the following March.

The citation for the literature prize for praised his work as " After Saint Joanit was five years before Shaw wrote a play. Fromhe spent four years writing what he described as his "magnum opus", a political treatise entitled The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. He described the League as "a school for the new international statesmanship as against the old Foreign Office diplomacy", but thought that it had not yet become the "Federation of the World".

Shaw returned to the theatre with what he called "a political extravaganza", The Apple Cartwritten in late It was, in Ervine's view, unexpectedly popular, taking a conservative, monarchist, anti-democratic line that appealed to contemporary audiences. During the s Shaw began to lose faith in the idea that society could be changed through Fabian gradualism, and became increasingly fascinated with dictatorial methods.

In he had welcomed Mussolini 's accession to power in Italy, observing that amid the "indiscipline and muddle and Parliamentary deadlock", Mussolini was "the right kind of tyrant". We desire to record that we saw nowhere evidence of economic slavery, privation, unemployment and cynical despair of betterment. Everywhere we saw [a] hopeful and enthusiastic working-class Shaw's enthusiasm for the Soviet Union dated to the early s when he had hailed Lenin as "the one really interesting statesman in Europe".

Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in JanuaryShaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man", [ ] and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler"; [ ] [ n 22 ] though his principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade.

The reception was unenthusiastic. Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times commenting that Shaw had "yielded to the impulse to write without having a subject", judged the play a "rambling and indifferently tedious conversation". The correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune said that most of the play was "discourse, unbelievably long lectures" and that although the audience enjoyed the play it was bewildered by it.

During the decade Shaw travelled widely and frequently. Most of his journeys were with Charlotte; she enjoyed voyages on ocean liners, and he found peace to write during the long spells at sea. He had earlier refused to go to "that awful country, that uncivilized place", "unfit to govern itself Despite his contempt for Hollywood and its aesthetic values, Shaw was enthusiastic about cinema, and in the middle of the decade wrote screenplays for prospective film versions of Pygmalion and Saint Joan.

Shaw was determined that Hollywood should have nothing to do george bernard shaw movies promotion the film, but was powerless to keep it from winning one Academy Award "Oscar" ; he described his award for "best-written screenplay" as an insult, coming from such a source. The first, a fantasy reworking of Shakespeare, made little impression, but the second, a satire on European dictators, attracted more notice, much of it unfavourable.

Towards the end of the decade, both Shaws began to suffer ill health. Charlotte was increasingly incapacitated by Paget's disease of boneand he developed pernicious anaemia. His treatment, involving injections of concentrated animal liver, was successful, but this breach of his vegetarian creed distressed him and brought down condemnation from militant vegetarians.

Two touring companies took his plays all round Britain. The loss of his wife was more profoundly felt than he had ever imagined any loss could be: for he prided himself on a stoical fortitude in all loss and misfortune. Following the outbreak of war on 3 September and the rapid conquest of PolandShaw was accused of defeatism when, in a New Statesman article, he declared the war over and demanded a peace conference.

Even there they were not immune from enemy air raids, and stayed on occasion with Nancy Astor at her country house, Cliveden. Her condition deteriorated, and she died in September. Shaw's final political treatise, Everybody's Political What's Whatwas published in Holroyd describes this as "a rambling narrative Pascal was given a third opportunity to film Shaw's work with Caesar and Cleopatra It cost three times its original budget and was rated "the biggest financial failure in the history of British cinema".

Shaw thought its lavishness nullified the drama, and he considered the film "a poor imitation of Cecil B. Inthe year of Shaw's ninetieth birthday, he accepted the freedom of Dublin and became the first honorary freeman of the borough of St Pancras, London. He declined, believing that an author's merit could only be determined by the posthumous verdict of history.

It was widely praised; a reviewer in the American Journal of Public Health considered it essential reading for any student of the American criminal justice system. Shaw continued to write into his nineties. His last plays were Buoyant Billionshis final full-length work; Farfetched Fables a set of six short plays revisiting several of his earlier themes such as evolution; a comic play for puppets, Shakes versus Shava ten-minute piece in which Shakespeare and Shaw trade insults; [ ] and Why She Would Notwhich Shaw described as "a little comedy", written in one week shortly before his ninety-fourth birthday.

During his later years, Shaw enjoyed tending the gardens at Shaw's Corner. He died at the age of 94 of renal failure precipitated by injuries incurred when falling while pruning a tree. His ashes, mixed with those of Charlotte, were scattered along footpaths and around the statue of Saint Joan in their garden. Shaw published a collected edition of his plays incomprising forty-two works.

Including eight earlier plays that he chose to omit from his published works, the total is sixty-two. Shaw's first three full-length plays dealt with social issues. He later grouped them as "Plays Unpleasant". Shaw followed the first trilogy with a second, published as "Plays Pleasant". The Three Plays for Puritans —comprising The Devil's DiscipleCaesar and Cleopatra and Captain Brassbound's Conversion —all centre on questions of empire and imperialism, a major topic of political discourse in the s.

Shaw's major plays of the first decade of the twentieth century address individual social, political or ethical issues. Man and Superman stands apart from the others in both its subject and its treatment, giving Shaw's interpretation of creative evolution in a combination of drama and associated printed text. Getting Married and Misalliance —the latter seen by Judith Evans as a companion piece to the former—are both in what Shaw called his "disquisitionary" vein, with the emphasis on discussion of ideas rather than on dramatic events or vivid characterisation.

In the decade from to the aftermath of the First World War Shaw wrote four full-length plays, the third and fourth of which are among his most frequently staged works. To correct the impression left by the original performers that the play portrayed a romantic relationship between the two main characters Shaw rewrote the ending to make it clear that the heroine will marry another, minor character.

Saint Joan drew widespread praise both for Shaw and for Sybil Thorndike, for whom he wrote the title role and who created the part in Britain. Once again, with On the Rocks and The Simpleton of the Unexpected Islesa political comedy with a clear plot was followed by an introspective drama. The first play portrays a British prime minister considering, but finally rejecting, the establishment of a dictatorship; the second is concerned with polygamy and eugenics and ends with the Day of Judgement.

The Millionairess is a farcical depiction of the commercial and social affairs of a successful businesswoman. Geneva lampoons the feebleness of the League of Nations compared with the dictators of Europe. In Good King Charles's Golden Daysdescribed by Weintraub as a warm, discursive high comedy, also depicts authoritarianism, but less satirically than Geneva.

Ervine writes of Shaw's later work that although it was still "astonishingly vigorous and vivacious" it showed unmistakable signs of his age. Shaw's collected musical criticism, published in three volumes, runs to more than 2, pages. In Shaw's george bernard shaw movies promotion, the London theatres of the s presented too many revivals of old plays and not enough new work.

He campaigned against " melodramasentimentalitystereotypes and worn-out conventions". In a study of Shaw's work as a theatre critic, E. West writes that Shaw "ceaselessly compared and contrasted georges bernard shaw movies promotion in interpretation and in technique". Shaw contributed more than articles as theatre critic for The Saturday Reviewin which he assessed more than productions.

He plays with everything: with wit, with philosophy, with drama, with actors and audience, with the whole theatre". Shaw maintained a provocative and frequently self-contradictory attitude to Shakespeare whose name he insisted on spelling "Shakespear". He has outlasted thousands of abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more". Shaw's political and social commentaries were published variously in Fabian tracts, in essays, in two full-length books, in innumerable newspaper and journal articles and in prefaces to his plays.

The majority of Shaw's Fabian tracts were published anonymously, representing the voice of the society rather than of Shaw, although the society's secretary Edward Pease later confirmed Shaw's authorship. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing inobserved that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays".

In this, he denounced the pacifist line espoused by Ramsay MacDonald and other socialist leaders, and proclaimed his readiness to shoot all pacifists rather than cede them power and influence. The Intelligent Woman's GuideShaw's main political treatise of the s, attracted both admiration and criticism. MacDonald considered it the world's most important book since the Bible; [ ] Harold Laski thought its arguments outdated and lacking in concern for individual freedoms.

A New York Times report dated 10 December quoted a recent Fabian Society lecture in which Shaw had praised Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin: "[T]hey are trying to get something done, [and] are adopting methods by which it is possible to get something done". He introduced his theories in The Revolutionist's Handbookan appendix to Man and Supermanand developed them further during the s in Back to Methuselah.

A Life magazine article observed that Shaw had "always tended to look at people more as a biologist than as an artist". Shaw's fiction-writing was largely confined to the five unsuccessful novels written in the period — Immaturity is a semi-autobiographical portrayal of mid-Victorian England, Shaw's "own David Copperfield " according to Weintraub.

Gareth Griffithin a study of Shaw's political thought, sees the novel as an interesting record of conditions, both in society at large and in the nascent socialist movement of the s. Shaw's only subsequent fiction of any substance was his novella The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for Godwritten during a visit to South Africa in The eponymous girl, intelligent, inquisitive, and converted to Christianity by insubstantial missionary teaching, sets out to find God, on a journey that after many adventures and encounters, leads her to a secular conclusion.

Shaw was a prolific correspondent throughout his life. His letters, edited by Dan H. Laurence, were published between and Wells and G. Shaw's diaries for —, edited by Weintraub, were published in two volumes, with a total of 1, pages, in Reviewing them, the Shaw scholar Fred Crawford wrote: "Although the primary interest for Shavians is the material that supplements what we already know about Shaw's life and work, the diaries are also valuable as a historical and sociological document of English life at the end of the Victorian age.

Through his journalism, pamphlets and occasional longer works, Shaw wrote on many subjects. His range of interest and enquiry included vivisectionvegetarianism, religion, language, cinema and photography, [ n 33 ] on all of which he wrote and spoke copiously. Collections of his writings on these and other subjects were published, mainly after his death, together with volumes of "wit and wisdom" and general journalism.

Despite the many books written about him Holroyd counts 80 by [ ] Shaw's autobiographical output, apart from his diaries, was relatively slight. He gave interviews to newspapers—"GBS Confesses", to The Daily Mail in is an example [ ] —and provided sketches to would-be biographers whose work was rejected by Shaw and never published. He made it clear to his publishers that this slim book was in no sense a full autobiography.

Shaw was a poseur and a puritan; he was similarly a bourgeois and an antibourgeois writer, working for Hearst and posterity; his didacticism is entertaining and his pranks are purposeful; he supports socialism and is tempted by fascism. Throughout his lifetime Shaw professed many beliefs, often contradictory. This inconsistency was partly an intentional provocation—the Spanish scholar-statesman Salvador de Madariaga describes Shaw as "a pole of negative electricity set in a people of positive electricity".

He favoured archaic spellings such as "shew" for "show"; he dropped the "u" in words like "honour" and "favour"; and wherever possible he rejected the apostrophe in contractions such as "won't" or "that's". Shaw's views on religion and Christianity were less consistent. Having in his youth proclaimed himself an atheist, in middle age he explained this as a reaction against the Old Testament image of a vengeful Jehovah.

By the early twentieth century, he termed himself a "mystic", although Gary Sloan, in an essay on Shaw's beliefs, disputes his credentials as such. Shaw espoused racial equality, and inter-marriage between people of different races. Political parties are not above exploiting these fears and jealousies. In Shaw joined in a controversy about vaccination against smallpox.

He called vaccination "a peculiarly filthy piece of witchcraft"; [ ] in his view immunisation campaigns were a cheap and inadequate substitute for a decent programme of housing for the poor, which would, he declared, be the means of eradicating smallpox and other infectious diseases. Shaw strove throughout his adult life to be referred to as "Bernard Shaw" rather than "George Bernard Shaw", but confused matters by continuing to use his full initials—G.

Bernard Shaw". Shaw, arguably the most important English-language playwright after Shakespeare, produced an immense oeuvreof which at least half a dozen plays remain part of the world repertoire. Academically unfashionable, of limited influence even in areas such as Irish drama and British political theatre where influence might be expected, Shaw's unique and unmistakable plays keep escaping from the safely dated category of period piece to which they have often been consigned.

Shaw did not found a school of dramatists as such, but Crawford asserts that today "we recognise [him] as second only to Shakespeare in the British theatrical tradition I can see what must have appealed about the original script. Cleopatra has an interesting arc, learning to be a political animal under Caesar's Mr. Miyagi-style tutelage.

He laughs at her silly schemes, sprinkles a few homilies like fairy dust, and then walks away so she can simmer in the message. By the end of the movie, she's no longer cowering behind his skirt, but instead sending her scary witch Flora Robson to kill her rivals. Vivien Leigh is pretty terrible in the role, however. The writing does all the growing for her.

Her performance as young Cleopatra consists of wide eyes and bubbly tones; adult Cleopatra scowls and speaks with a hiss. Pascal's production is just as false. The Technicolor spectacle never really looks convincing. Its grandeur is that of a backlot set. Apropos of nothing, though maybe it serves as its own commentary on Caesar and Cleopatraafter I finished watching the DVD, I left the still menu sitting on the TV screen while I got my computer and prepared some food, etc.

I left it up for about five minutes before I realized the pug I was babysitting was barking at it and not something outside on the street. Was it the color of yellow on the graphic, irking him like a red rag to a bull? Or was he just so sick of seeing Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh, he couldn't stand anymore? Not sure where he gets off if it's the latter, since he got to sleep through most of the movie.

There's a theory, most notably advanced by Orson Welles, that color is not the filmmaker's friend, that it exposes blemishes and distracts from the essentials. Perhaps that's part of Caesar and Cleopatra 's problem, because the other Roman drama in this set, 's Androcles and the Lion 98 minutesand its black-and-white rebuilding of the Coliseum works in all sorts of wonderful ways.

Gabriel Pascal takes a backseat here, still smarting from the box office failure of Caesar and Cleopatra the seven years between productions, apparently, was not by choice. They've brought the story to life with a light comedic touch. Alan Young, who is probably most famous as the owner of the talking horse on Mr. Edwas typecast as a lover of animals from the get-go.

He plays Androcles, a big fan of furry creatures and a persecuted Christian who is the top of an alphabetical list of Jesus freaks sentenced to a date with the lions. While on the run, the gentle and bumbling tailor runs across one of those dreaded lions in the wilderness. Said king of the jungle has a thorn in his paw. Androcles removes that thorn, he and the big cat become friends, and Androcles even names him Tommy.

Androcles is arrested shortly thereafter, joining a band of merry Christian soldiers on a trek to Rome and the Coliseum. They travel under the guidance of a stern but thoughtful legionnaire, known only as Captain Victor Mature. These curiously happy prisoners make him curious about what makes them so joyful, especially when one of them turns out to be a rather attractive damsel.

Lavinia Jean Simmons is a true believer who takes no guff but is truly tender-hearted. Also amongst the group is Ferrovius, a bruiser with a crazy reputation. He apparently is quite the effective missionary, though his methods may be slightly off script. He is played by Robert Newton, who does the same Keith Moon impression here as he did in Major Barbara though, I guess it's more likely that Moonie nicked the routine from him, given that Keith wouldn't even have picked up a pair of drumsticks yet.

His testimonials are a highlight of Androcles and the Lionand his character is far more interesting than Simmons's. She is merely a pretty face, and the romantic subplot with her and the Captain is predictable and shallow. Alan Young is the humorous glue of the piece. He orbits the other characters, adding corny asides, biding his time until the climax when he is reunited with Tommy.

Their tango in the gladiatorial ring is funny in good ways and bad. The editing is really poor, making it painfully obvious that Young isn't actually with the lion most of the time, and the guy in the lion suit when the two of them quite literally dance is unintentionally hysterical. Androcles and the Lion is kind of an odd duck. On one hand, it's pretty good secular entertainment; on the other hand, it wears its messages on its sleeve.

That message is less pro-Christian than it is pro-tolerance.