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Lizards in Movies
 
The Mercenary (1968)
 
Spoiler Alert !

Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.
 
The Mercenary The Mercenary The Mercenary
The Mercenary The Mercenary  
This is the classic Spaghetti Western by Sergio Corbucci (the director of "Django") with the great whistling theme "L'arena" by Ennio Morricone that was used 36 years later in Kill Bill Vol. 2. But enough trivia.

At the beginning of this film we see a bunch of peasant men working outdoors at a mine when they announce a lunch break and the men line up for the same single scoop of beans into a bowl that you see in every prison or work movie. (Or high school cafeteria...) One man tells the guard there should be extra protein in the beans because it's Sunday. Another man pulls a lizard out of his beans and the guard laughs and says that's your extra protein.

The laborers (who are really revolutionaries) immediately pull guns and take over the mine. Their leader takes the lizard he found, points his gun at the mine owner, and forces him to eat it while all of the revolutionaries laugh.

The movie was made in Spain, so I'd guess they used a real but dead Spanish lizard. It resembles a small lacerta of one of the several species found in Spain. The lizard eaten appears to be fake.