Word: ferrovius
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Shaw took care that his Christians were not carbon copies of each other. As he commented, "All my articulate Christians have different enthusiasms." And in the case of Ferrovius he allowed a would-be martyr to fail at the moment of trial by committing wholesale slaughter. In a striking change from his other roles for the Festival, Charles Cioffi gives Ferrovius a low, gruff voice and makes him a quick-tempered powerhouse, an ogre. Later, when he returns from the arena brandishing a bloody sword, he makes a wonderful effect not by howling, "Cut off this right hand...
...Persian Room of Manhattan's Plaza Hotel) and an RCA Victor balladeer who has crashed the bestseller charts twice already this year. He has two TV specials coming up the same week next month-as host of NBC's high-rating annual Ice Follies show and as Ferrovius in a Richard Rodgers musical adaptation of Androcles and the Lion. There are offers to appear with a Utah Shakespeare company and the Santa Fe Opera, and RCA Victor is preparing a new record album called Christmas with Ed Ames...
Frederic Warriner's touching and gentle Androcles stays always above the merely coy and cute and manges to avoid any hint of the sentimental excess into which the character might fall in less capable hands. The Ferrovius of Robert Evans is wonderfully full and strong, yet fully cognizant of the weakness forced upon him by an overactive conscience. The Christian Lavinia, blown first this way and then that by her emotions, is given stature and grace by Laurinda Barrett, in a performance notable for the clarity of its projection of constantly shifting moods and attitudes. Of the others, Louis Edmonds...
...mounted it beautifully. Each of the several enthusiasms of the Christians and the Romans comes through in perfect counterpoint to the others: the callous Caesar and the Captain who is in love stand apart from the brawling gladiators; the cowardly and debauched Christian, Spintho, pairs off against the iron Ferrovius as Ferrovius sets off the lovely, if confused, Lavinia. All revolves, however, around the gentle and humanitarian Androcles, and never more clearly than in the touching, though unspoken devotion to Lavinia he shows in the ante-room of the arena--a very neat piece of ensemble staging as well...
...from the theatricalism of Maurice Evans as a simpering Caesar to Mature's deadpanning. As the lion-taming hero, TV Actor Alan Young appears imbecilic rather than amiable. Jean Simmons makes a beguiling Lavinia, while Robert Newton tears ferociously into the role of the Christian warrior, Ferrovius. But this screen adaptation of a Shavian classic succeeds mostly in throwing G.B.S. to the lions...