One of the more notorious of the Castle Films — a series of movies marketed by Eugene Castle for the home market — “Lion and Tiger Fight” features a supposed death match between cats at the top of the food chain.
The film begins in India with a purported tiger hunt led by a Rajah into the Gir Forest. (The Gir Forest is now a National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat, India.) An intrepid group rides elephants into the jungle, surrounded by native beaters known as “Crows”. These people are described by the narrator as thieves and robbers… Local women are shown for the camera, bedecked with valuable jewelry, and the hunt continues.
Once a Bengal tiger is located, it is chased into a large pit. Incredibly, a lion is also trapped in the pit. (This unlikely scenario was doubtless staged for the filmmakers.) Then a “battle” takes place between the King of Beasts and the “striped killer”. Although the narrator indicates that the bengal tiger lost the match, skeptics have suggested the “fight” was nothing of the sort, and the entire film was created through clever editing and use of sound effects. You decide!
Castle Films (known as Universal 8 from 1977) was a home-movie distributor founded in California by former newsreel cameraman Eugene W. Castle (1897–1960) in 1924. The company originally produced business and advertising films. By 1931 it had moved its principal office to New York City. In 1937, Castle branched out into 8 mm and 16 mm home movies, buying newsreel footage and old theatrical films for home use. Castle’s first home movie was a newsreel of the Hindenburg explosion. That same year, Castle launched his “News Parade” series, a year-in-review newsreel; travelogues followed in 1938. Castle also released sports films, animal adventures, and “old time” movies.
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