The Lion Tamer

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.