The Lion Tamer (1934) User Reviews

Taming the lions

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 6 May 2018]

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

1934 saw Van Beuren make two cartoons with Amos and Andy, the other being 'The Rasslin Match'. Neither were successful and are pretty much forgotten today, and it is not hard to see why and why more Amos and Andy cartoons weren't made. Despite being lower rated, for me 'The Lion Tamer' is actually the better cartoon by quite some way. This is coming from someone who didn't really like 'The Rasslin Match' at all.

It, 'The Lion Tamer' that is, does contain still a good deal of the faults of Van Beuren's work, while also having good points and more so than in 'The Rasslin Match'. Van Beuren have actually done quite a number of watchable or more cartoons, a few pretty good if imperfect. 'The Lion Tamer' is one of the watchable ones.

Best asset is the music score from the ever consistently great Winston Sharples, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden attack their voice acting as Amos and Andy with enthusiasm. Amos and Andy, especially Andy, have more personality, even though caricatures somewhat and there are amusing moments especially with the fake lion that were not there at all in 'The Rasslin Match'.

There is an energy here too, again not there before. The synchronisation is neater.

However, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.

Story is very slight to the point of non-existence and the energy could have been more, the 9 minutes still feels longer occasionally. It feels aimless at times and also random and disjointed. If you are looking for sense too, look elsewhere.

Basically 'The Lion Tamer' is a stringing along of gags structured in a way that's not as disorganised and random like in 'The Rasslin Match' but there are still signs of both. There are not enough laughs, or at least little imaginative or amusing, and many are likely to find some of the material offensive (even when judging it for back then). Not enough is inventive or imaginative, never rising above the forgettable and bland at best and there is not much absurdist about them.

Altogether, a watchable effort and the better one of the Amos and Andy cartoons but still a long way from great. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Not so funny

[rbverhoef · 4/10 · 23 March 2006]

'The Lion Tamer' is an animated short starring Andy Brown and Amos Jones, two black men with the voices of Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden. I have not seen other cartoons with these two characters and after this one I do not really want to. The story that involves Andy as a lion tamer, a fake lion with two men in a suite, and a real dangerous one is as predictable as these things can be. You can probably guess the outcome by reading the sentence before this one.

Besides the story that is not good we have a racist kind of animation. The black men (and the black audience watching the lion tamer for that matter) are caricatures, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but here it is sort of offending. Of course you should watch pass that, but with a predictable cartoon like 'The Lion Tamer' that's pretty hard.

"You is there, ain't you, Brother Crawford?"

[ackstasis · 4/10 · 3 December 2008]

Amos 'n' Andy were two very stereotypical African Americans, voiced by Charles J. Correll and Freeman F. Gosden, who hosted a popular radio programme that ran between 1928 and 1960. In 1930, when RKO decided to make a film featuring the two characters, apparently nobody thought it problematic that everybody's favourite Black personalities were actually very White. No matter – Correll and Gosden appeared in black-face, and the film was a considerable commercial success, despite the critics hating it. Indeed, Gosden later described 'Check and Double Check (1930)' as "just about the worst movie ever." A planned sequel never came into fruition, but the two comedians later lent their voices to two short-subject cartoons featuring their trademark characters, 'The Rasslin' Match (1934)' and 'The Lion Tamer (1934).'

I haven't seen the former, but 'The Lion Tamer' is nothing to write home about. Crudely-drawn, with an entirely predictable storyline, the nine-minute cartoon is largely uninteresting fair, saved only by the intriguing characterisations of the two leads. Though Amos and Andy are largely condemned nowadays as being racist creations, the characters really do work. They are stereotypes, yes, but, more importantly, each man has a distinct and identifiable personality, emphasised frequently through their repeated use of personal catchphrases (I don't know why, but I laughed every time Andy exclaimed 'Hotdog!"). Of course, when there are two lions – one fake, one real – and Andy is to "tame" the fake one, you can guess pretty far ahead of schedule where this story is leading. Of historical interest, but not much more.

Better Than the First Film in the Series

[Michael_Elliott · 4 May 2014]

The Lion Tamer (1934)

** (out of 4)

The second and final film in the Amos 'n' Andy cartoon series has our two "heroes" working at a circus where Andy is supposed to "tame" a fake lion but of course a real lion gets into the cage with him. I watched the two Amos 'n' Andy shorts back-to-back and there's no question that this one here is miles better than the first. I thought this one here actually featured a few funny moments even if the screenplay wasn't all that original. Even by 1934 there had been films where someone was supposed to be messing with a fake animal only to have a real one takes its place. I thought the scenes of Andy pushing the lion around were actually quite funny. I also thought the scene where we see inside the fake lion outfit to be funny as well. As for the rest of the film, it's certainly a product of its own time as most of the humor is just not funny and there's no doubt that the stereotypes aren't going to sit well with modern audiences. With that said, for the most part there's nothing overly offensive here once you get past the fact that it's two white guys doing the voices of the black men.

The Lion Tamer is the second, and last, Amos 'n' Andy cartoon made

[tavm · 3/10 · 13 September 2007]

The Lion Tamer is the second Van Beuren cartoon that starred the popular radio characters Amos 'n' Andy. As in the previous one, The Rasslin' Match, another character named Kingfish tricks Andy into doing something Andy normally wouldn't do. Here, Andy has to tame a lion in front of a large audience. There are actually two lions here: a real one who's tied on the ground for show and a costumed one worn by a couple of friends. Andy is supposed to tame the costumed one but of course eventually ends with the real one. The visual gags involving both lions makes this a little better humor-wise than The Rasslin' Match but not by much. Since this was the last Amos 'n' Andy cartoon made, I'd only recommend this and its predecessor only to those who are Amos 'n' Andy completists. Both these cartoons are, for now, available for viewing on YouTube in pretty blurry prints.

Not only offensive but it's just not funny.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 25 August 2012]

Back in the late 1920s, the "Amos 'n Andy" radio show debuted and it was a bit hit through the 1930s and 40s. However, there was one major problem in marketing the film--the voice actors were all white guys pretending to be black guys--very, very, very stereotypically stupid black guys. Now they tried making one film with these voice actors, "Check and Double Check". Aside from not being funny, the film also suffered because these men wore black-face throughout! So how could they solve this problem? Make "Amos 'n Andy" cartoons--and "The Lion Tamer" is one of them.

The film consists of some animation that make the characters seem buffoonish--and I am sure that many folks seeing the cartoon today would be offended. However, the film made one other serious mistake--it just wasn't funny. It consists of Andy pretending to be a lion tamer--with Calhoun and Lightning wearing a lion costume. Surprise, surprise....a real lion breaks loose and he thinks this real lion is a fake...and hilarity is supposed to ensue...and doesn't. Not very good and mostly of interest for historical reasons.