by Linda Kay

Directed by: Chester Erskine, Nicholas Ray

Synopsis: Based on the play by George Bernard Shaw. A Christian tailor named Androcles (Alan Young) befriends a lion by removing a thorn from the big cat’s paw, then faces being thrown to the lions himself by the Romans. But will his feline friend remember him? A subplot revolves around a Roman Captain (Victor Mature) falling for one of the Christian sacrifices (Jean Simmons).

Kitty Cameo: Near the beginning of the film Androcles’ wife Megaera (Elsa Lanchester) runs into the tailor shop to warn Androcles that the Romans are rounding up Christians to throw to the lions. Androcles has several animals around him, including a goat, a dog, a raven, a duck, and a tabby cat which has a little makeshift eyepatch over his left eye (presumably meant to have been fashioned by the gentle tailor himself).

Androcles is reluctant to run away from the Romans, not wanting to leave his animals for one thing, but his wife thinks he is just trying to get away from her and insists he pack a large bundle and get going.

Megaera even shoves the poor cat aside with her foot while trying to hurry Androcles out the door.

Behind the Scenes

While this particular scene was notably short and the animals were not given too much special attention, the odd casting of two of the animals sent the RKO publicity machine into uncharted territory, as evidenced in this article from The Lansing State Journal published on April 1, 1952:

Animals Try To Steal Show in ‘Androcles’

    Hollywood — Sid Fogel, who has spent the past quarter of a century rounding up fauna, fish and fowl to act in RKO Radio films, turned away from the telephone and heaved a sigh that started from way down between his two ulcers.
    “What a casting order!!” he muttered. Then a gleam of determination lighted the Fogel eyes. “S’elp me,” he continued, “I’ll find a wooden-legged duck, and a one-eyed cat that won’t eat birds, before this movie needs ’em.”
    Fogel was referring to Gabriel Pascal’s production of Bernard Shaw’s “Androcles and the Lion,” which has a greater variety of four-footed and winged actors than any Hollywood picture has boasted in the past 21 years, and which drove Director Chester Erskine almost daft, and which did their cussed best to steal scenes from stars Jean Simmons, Alan Young, Victor Mature and Maurice Evans.
    Already the Fogel fold included seven lions, four dogs, two goats, 18 horses, two cats, one raven, two oxen and one tortoise — all trained. Now he had to find a one-eyed cat that wouldn’t eat birds, and a wooden-legged duck!
    Studios don’t get an animal, bird and reptile cast like this for “peanuts”. Fogel drove some mighty shrewd bargains in rounding up this well-trained cast, but the studio still had to shell out more than $9,000 in salaries to the beasts, birds, the tortoise, and their several trainers.
    It took Fogel almost two weeks to find the special duck and the special cat, but find them he did, and in so doing two ulcers settled down to rest until Fogel’s [next] unusual casting assignment.

The idea of specifically requesting a duck with a wooden leg and a cat with one eye is already somewhat strange for such a short scene, but let’s assume the filmmakers wanted to demonstrate that Androcles has a habit of caring for sick or injured animals. The newspaper stories about this animal talent search which drove trainer Sid Fogel to ulcers loses some credibility when you realize that in certain shots of the film the tabby cat, despite wearing the poorly fitted eye patch, appears to have two perfectly good eyes! After all, a two eyed cat whose willing to wear an eye patch is certainly easier to find than a one eyed cat. And call us skeptical, but we really have to question whether or not the poor duck was simply fitted with some kind of “stump” over one foot to pull off that illusion. The poor bird doesn’t seem too comfortable with a wooden leg, that’s for certain!

Final Mewsings: Cats have no say in whether or not they are made part of Hollywood deception.

Many thanks to RobG for letting us know about the cat in this film.

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