Androcles and the Lion

Director: Chester Erskine and Nicholas Ray
Year Released: 1952
Rating: 1.5

Infantile film adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's "comical" play is a bland endorsement of Christianity. Main dolt Androcles (an effeminate and annoying Alan Young), whipped by wife Elsa Lanchester, manages to help out a wounded lion with a thorn in its paw; this good karma helps out later when the same lion is sent by Julius Caesar to devour him. The fable - originally by Aesop - always seemed much better suited for animation, though the sight of Young and a stuffed lion dancing in the middle of the Colosseum is so stupid it's endearing.