Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Boring

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I think Androcles and the Lion was supposed to be a comedy, but it was so awful, I couldn't be sure. In the midst of the 1950s biblical craze, Hollywood created a film about a group of slaves who are rounded up and sent to the gladiator pit to fight a lion, because they are Christians. Of course, the Roman bad guys are all portrayed as buffoons, since they are not Christians, and the overwhelming theme is "Christians are good, and everyone who isn't is a terrible bad guy who should learn his lesson". That theme isn't necessarily a bad one, especially since Hollywood made a ton of biblical films in the 1950s and 1960s, but the ridiculous feel of the film ruins it, not to mention the over-the-top moronic performance of Alan Young as the title character, Maurice Evans as Caesar, Elsa Lanchester, Gene Lockhart, Robert Newton, Jim Backus—the list goes on. Jean Simmons, a Christian slave, and Victor Mature, a Roman soldier who falls in love with her, aren't particularly over-the-top, but the few scenes they have together are hardly worth it. In reality, if he'd been found hiding and protecting a slave, and if she'd repeatedly sassed her captors, they both would have been killed.Alan Young loves animals, so when he comes across an injured lion in the middle of the road, he coos it with baby talk and takes the thorn out of his paw. It's pretty ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as the rest of the film.

Whatever the reverse of deja vu is you'll find it here inasmuch as three of the cast played similar roles in similar films within a year of two of this one. John Hoyt went on to play Decius Brutus in Mank's Julius Caesar whilst Jean Simmons played an almost identical role to the one here in The Robe in which Victor Mature also appeared. Other than that there is little remarkable in this fairly affable adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's satire on early Christianity written, as the majority of Shaw's work, for the theatre. Alan Young makes a decent fist of the eponymous Androcles and though he played a couple more leads his career faded within the decade. Jean Simmons made her US debut here and went on to enjoy several decades of success whilst most of Victor Mature's best work (Kiss Of Death, Easy Living, was behind him. Worth seeing but not worth buying the DVD.

Androcles is a devout Christian, all creatures are friends of the Earth. During an encounter with a lion, who is roaring in pain, he removes a huge thorn from the beasts' paw, thus creating a friend for life. A short time after the incident, Androcles and a number of other Christians are arrested and condemned to death in the arena. They are to die by fighting with gladiators or eaten alive by lions, is there any chance that Androcles and his companions can survive their fate?During my viewing of this film I was eating some soup and bread, I literally nearly choked on the bread and expelled the soup via my nose! Such is the hammy comedy on offer here, Androcles And The Lion, adapted from a George Bernard Shaw play, is an enjoyable picture if one is prepared for just what a ham sandwich it is. The cast, featuring Victor Mature, Jean Simmons, Alan Young and Robert Newton, play it as cardboard cutouts {Simmons possibly the only one taking it serious}, with the technical aspects so bad I dare you not to laugh out loud as Young dances with a man in a Lion suit!!Don't take it serious and you should be OK, and I'm certainly not annoyed that I sat thru it, but I would rather wrestle a Lion and two Tigers before I had to sit and watch it again! 4/10

G.B.S. declared in the lengthly "Preface" to this play, written years after its 1913 premiere (the "Preface is actually longer than the play itself), that he had written it in pique at the one J.M. Barry play he had ever thoroughly disliked - PETER PAN! The sentiment certainly sets a bench mark for measuring what Shaw may have accomplished in his charming, witty examination of a "Greek wizard" Christian (Androcles) who finds animals of all stripes and species more lovable and easy to get along with than his long (and vocally) suffering wife and neighbors.It also may explain why Hollywood missed with this neatly produced filming despite a number of inspired casting choices (Maurice Evans as Caesar, Elsa Lanchaster as Androcles' wife & Robert Newton as the warrior/Christian, Ferrovius) and deft directorial touches.In trying to focus on the "family friendly" (deadly words in the Hollywood lexicon) aspects of Shaw's charming satire, the film gives a bad case of the "cutsies" to the central role (it would have been interesting to see this Alan Young performance before he became so identified with his role, Wilbur, in TV's iconic MR. ED) and soft pedals or ignores most of the legitimately humorous byplay among his fellow Christians who wish martyrdom to wildly varying degrees and the infighting of the professional gladiators who echo (in somewhat more bloodthirsty fashion) the outrageous practicality of Captain Bluntschli in Shaw's early ARMS AND THE MAN.Having made the decision to play the lion *as* a lion (before or after Harpo Marx departed the production?), the delicious hold on adult satire Shaw infused his play with was probably a lost cause, but what remains remains a very pleasant diversion worth a Saturday afternoon. For lovers of good Shaw however, it's more than a little watered down - perhaps most surprising of all, more watered down that the later equally enjoyable musical version Richard Rodgers and Peter Stone did for TV with Noel Coward as Caesar and Norman Wisdom as Androcles!