Monday, January 28, 2019

MIKKENIE #12


Posted by Chic Silber at 1/28/2019 12:02:00 AM

5 comments:

Chic Silber said...


The Dutch always had a flair

for snappy wardrobe like this

Either this is a very old poster

or that would be an ancient lion

28 January, 2019 00:43
Chic Silber said...


Perhaps billed as a "Lion Charmer"

She could certainly charm me

28 January, 2019 10:14
Paul Gutheil said...

Lions from the film Quo Vadis, is this show saying their lions were used in Americas 1950's film Quo Vadis ??

28 January, 2019 12:02
Chic Silber said...


Paul are you questioning the

validity of circus publicity

Perhaps this poster is OLD

or maybe they just look like

(they don't all look alike)

28 January, 2019 13:31
Roger Smith said...

Yes, PAUL: QUO VADIS was an MGM production, shot in several locations in Italy, but chiefly in Rome. Its release print ran close to 3 hours, opening on Christmas Day, 1951, starring the impossibly handsome Robert Taylor, and at her most glamorous, Deborah Kerr. Leo Genn was 3rd billed, followed by the overpowering Peter Ustinov, who literally walked off with this picture in his harrowing turn as Nero.

Our poster star here was Belita Pechti Klant, meaning she was of the world-respected Klant school of wild animal trainers, late of the Netherlands. She and famed trainer Jean Michon were uncredited in the screen titles, but were on board for "lion stunts". Coordinating the big cat sequences was the man whose act billed an advertised 70 lions, Herr Alfred Schneider. Also unheralded for his work on this film was stateside trainer Mel Koontz, then of World Jungle Compound, in Thousand Oaks. So this poster is entirely legitimate in claiming their leeuwen as those in QUO VADIS.

We have all known of those who claim their circus act animals were those in well-known film and TV productions, and never were. When the Cheetah chimps, trained by Henry Tyndall, of our Thousand Oaks Compound, became international favorites, every chimp act working claimed their animals were the movie stars. Tyndall's 5 chimps were the Cheetahs for the 12 Johnny Weissmuller epics, then the Tamba chimps for Johnny's 16 JUNGLE JIM films, and the 7 TARZAN outings starring Lex Barker. Tyndall's chimps won the PATSY Award for supporting Ronald Reagan, in BEDTIME FOR BONZO, but nothing stopped circus acts from claiming Tyndall's credits. To this day, claims are on record for circus trainers having bears and lions on TV series of the past, and the production companies have specifically pointed out by name that there was no association at all.

A little trivia? OK--2 future Oscar winners are uncredited in QUO VADIS, so see if you can spot Sophia Loren as a slave girl to Ms. Kerr's "Lygia" character. And this next one had to have been a gag, since Elizabeth Taylor was long an established MGM star. But here she is in all her unnamed glory, menaced by attacking animals as a Christian prisoner in Nero's arena.

One more? Walter Pidgeon's authoritative tones narrate the picture, minus mention of his name.

28 January, 2019 18:42

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