Nerve! (1932)

Introductory intertitle reads: “How would you like to enter a lion’s den, after having been badly mauled a month before! As a supreme test of nerve, this requires some beating... as Clyde Beatty the trainer, shows.“ M/S through bars of a cage showing lions being let into an enclosed space. They roam around the enclosure. A trainer walks around outside the cage teasing the lions with a stick. He pokes the stick through the bars of the cage and hits the lion on the head with it - basically provoking the lion into anger. The lion roars. The lion tamer steps into the ring and starts cracking his whip. He holds a chair in front of him and continues to torment the lion who gets very angry. At one point the lion grabs the stick from the lion tamer’s hand. The lion tamer wears jodhpurs and boots and is very macho. When he stands in a certain pose with one leg stretched out behind the other and his head down the lion is calm. Several people watch the display through the bars of the enclosure. FIL