You noticed that while there are often movies with men in gorilla or ape suits, outside of Bert Lahr, there has never been a movie with a man in a lion costume. One of the ape costumes here is absolutely ridiculous, like the suit got a permanent before the actor put it on. It's not just a plight of the animals in this Clyde Beatty film, but the whole structure that makes it weak.
The film has two stories, the first half dealing with Phyllis Coates' deals with a zoo buyer searching for lions and gorillas (with the lions promised to him escaping during a fire that shows Beatty using his taming tools to prevent the humans from being attacked as they escape) and the second half on the hunt for black maned lions. While the fire sequence is exciting as far as the action is concerned, it seems rather close to the enclosure they are in. This ends up being like two episodes of a TV show smashed together for the big screen, and the episodes are completely different in tone which makes it rather jarring.
The film has two stories, the first half dealing with Phyllis Coates' deals with a zoo buyer searching for lions and gorillas (with the lions promised to him escaping during a fire that shows Beatty using his taming tools to prevent the humans from being attacked as they escape) and the second half on the hunt for black maned lions. While the fire sequence is exciting as far as the action is concerned, it seems rather close to the enclosure they are in. This ends up being like two episodes of a TV show smashed together for the big screen, and the episodes are completely different in tone which makes it rather jarring.