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Is that because you think of him mostly in connection with (then)-contemporary romantic comedies and/or Berlin cabaret songs?
He certainly rose to the occasion here, with a delightful motif for Androcles that wouldn't have been out of place on an Abbott and Costello or Danny Kaye soundtrack.
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It's GB Shaw, and more of a satire than just a comedy.
The Hollywood version sits uneasily between two poles. The Mature/Simmons scenes are played straight, as befits serious drama, whilst the Androcles scenes go far off to the other extreme: the most bizarre being the waltzing scene with the lion.
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John, I, too, thank you -- because I had missed Angelillo's missing my point.
In part, I think this was because Hollander's score mirrors the duality of the film itself: What I remember most fondly, as I indicated, was the lighthearted music for the Androcles scenes, but if memory serves when the occasion demanded it Hollander provided ancient Rome, Hollywood style.
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It's GB Shaw, and more of a satire than just a comedy.
The Hollywood version sits uneasily between two poles. The Mature/Simmons scenes are played straight, as befits serious drama, whilst the Androcles scenes go far off to the other extreme: the most bizarre being the waltzing scene with the lion.
Well, the play's like that, too. Mixed approaches. Androcles talking baby talk to the lion is fun, also from the play, and the interchanges with the emperor are always cogent.
Adapted for a TV musical in 1967, music by Richard Rodgers, serviceable score, with one very nice song, "No More Waiting." Starred Norman Wisdom as Androcles, and Inga Swenson and John Cullum as the lovers, with a rare, possibly the last, performance by none other than Noel Coward as the emperor. (Coward was, as always, being Coward, but he was far better at it than anyone else...)
I've always found this play, and its adaptations, awkward, chiefly for the reasons stated above. It's actually based on an old Roman myth, and, as usual, Shaw uses the story to inject all kinds of ideological argument. Just remember: George Bernard Shaw's plays are more about George Bernard Shaw than they are about anything else... (Curious body of work. In his day, he was hailed as a near-genius, and he even thought his writing the equal of Shakespeare. Funny, how, over the years, time has really passed him by, and he now seems mostly quaint....)
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Fast Factoid:
(If memory serves):
"Emperor" Noel Coward had to get special dispensation, (maybe from the songwriters, maybe even from the Shaw estate) to add one line, spoken to the Pretorian Guard after they sing his praises: "Thank you, dear boys!"
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