After his gargantuan Technicolor folly 'Caesar and Cleopatra' nearly bankrupted Lord Rank, producer Gabriel Pascal ended his film career with a whimper at RKO with a final, much cheaper Shavian adaptation in black & white.
It's not really any more stagy than the earlier epic, and provides the satisfaction of seeing a radiant Jean Simmons promoted from a bit player in the former film to the female lead. Elsa Lanchester's a scream as the hero's nagging wife, Robert Newton as Ferrovious, described as having "the strength of an elephant and the temper of an angry bull" is fearsome even when turning the other cheek; and it's not every day you see Jim Backus playing a centurion!
It's not really any more stagy than the earlier epic, and provides the satisfaction of seeing a radiant Jean Simmons promoted from a bit player in the former film to the female lead. Elsa Lanchester's a scream as the hero's nagging wife, Robert Newton as Ferrovious, described as having "the strength of an elephant and the temper of an angry bull" is fearsome even when turning the other cheek; and it's not every day you see Jim Backus playing a centurion!