Androcles and the Lion

Chester Erskine
1952-12-01

SPECTACLE, ROMANCE, COMEDY!...as only Shaw could write it and the screen show it!
5.8
98 min

George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.

Cast

Name Character Team
Victor Mature Captain Unowned
Jean Simmons Lavinina Unowned
Alan Young Androcles Unowned
Robert Newton Ferrovius Unowned
Maurice Evans Caesar Unowned
Elsa Lanchester Megaera Unowned
Reginald Gardiner Lentulus Unowned
Gene Lockhart Menagerie Keeper Unowned
Alan Mowbray Editor of Gladiators Unowned
Noel Willman Spintho Unowned
John Hoyt Cato Unowned
Jim Backus Centurion Unowned
Lowell Gilmore Metellus Unowned
Woody Strode The Lion Unowned
Strother Martin Soldier (uncredited) Unowned
Millard Sherwood Christian (uncredited) Unowned