“In the early years of this century, Alfred Schneider was director of one of the most famous circuses in Europe. When its caravan set up camp on the outskirts of Turin in 1912, Ambrosio went to see Schneider and managed to persuade him to perform with his lions in some films. Frusta, the company’s script writer, wrote three stories in a few days which were immediately put into production. The first was entitled La nave dei leoni (lit.: The ship of lions), with Alberto Capozzi wrestling with these dangerous felines, directed by Luigi Maggi. Caserini made the other two, Nelly la domatrice (Nelly the Lion-tamer) with Fernanda Negri Pouget and Mario Bonnard in elegant uniform, and Infamia araba (Arab infamy), where the unfortunate victim manages to escape from lions who are trying to eat her by making them fall into a pit. Immediately, afterwards, the circus moved to Rome. This time, it was Cines to film Schneider and his lions. In pasto ai leoni is a story about the circus, where a tamer seeks revenge against his girlfriend for betraying him by setting lions onto her and her lover. The lover dies, torn to pieces, but she is saved by a miracle and unmasks the assassin and his accomplice, a perfidious clown”.

(Vittorio Martinelli)