Cleopatra
Massive in scale and in its 4 hour plus length, CLEOPATRA is the definitive 60's, old Hollywood blockbuster that delivers high drama, huge old school stars and a never boring tale carried by three megawatt stars of the time.
The troubled, unending production of this film is a story as fascinating as the film itself. It's star and director both nearly died making this hard to resist film behemoth.
Where do you start with this legendary film?
Let's start with the spectacle from a day when CGI and digital effects were still 30 years away. When you wanted to film Cleopatra's entrance into Rome, you built Rome on a backlot, filled the set with thousands of extras and then put Elizabeth Taylor in an impossibly expensive costume, perched several stories in the air, following a procession so loaded with spectacle, it's one of film histories greatest moments.
A sea battle is a pivotal moment in Mark Antony's war conquests? Great, lets build a huge warship from scratch, with hundreds of giant oars rowing from the bottom deck as it sails into port. That boat cost $750,000 dollars in 1963, which equals approx $8 million today. That ship is in about 25 minutes of the 4 hour film.
Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, Guys and Dolls) took over the project when original Director Rouben Mamoulian lost the faith of 20th Century Fox and production delays almost cancelled the film. Mankiewicz directed all day, rewrote the huge script every night, slept a couple hours and did it all again, aided by shots in the morning and at night. After many months, he ended up in the hospital near death, which shut down production for weeks.
Elizabeth Taylor was the only choice as Cleopatra, but stories of her unreliable health on other productions came true again here. She almost died and have to have emergency surgery and a tracheotomy after pneumonia put her down for weeks.
Combine that with Taylor meeting Richard Burton for the first time and you have an on set love affair that shattered marriages and lit gossip magazines of the time on fire.
There's no denying that Taylor and Burton have explosive chemistry on screen. Burton's acting holds up well, but looking at Taylor's acting from a perspective six decades later, it feels more like it belongs on "Dallas" and "Dynasty" than a serious historical drama. But I was having so much fun watching her torn between two lovers and chewing the scenery, that I didn't really care. She's stunning beyond all measure.
Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady, Doctor Doolittle) is very good as Julius Caesar, falling for the Egyptian Queen's seductive wiles as his closest advisors plot and scheme. And what a group they are.
Martin Landau (Crimes and Misdemeanors) is Rufio, Caesar and Antony's loyal ally, unfailing in his devotion to them. Hume Cronyn is very good as Sosigenes, trying to navigate the deadly politics of the Roman counsel while remaining true to Caesar.
Roddy McDowell stands out as Octavian/Caesar Augustus, the most calculating leader in waiting with a great bloodline. I have to admit though, when McDowell went into his biggest (terrific) speech on those massive steps, I couldn't help but think how similar the staging and phrasing was to his role as a Caesar of a different breed in "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" in 1972. McDowell is fantastic.
This film defines visual spectacle to this day.
The Oscar winning production design by John DeCuir (The KIng and I, Ghiostbusters) is an all time film achievement, as is the Oscar winning photography by Leon Shamroy (South Pacific, The Agony and the Ecstacy) and Oscar winning costumes by Irene Sharaff (West Side Story).
Those three elements combine in one jaw dropping moment after another.
You don't need to guess where the $44 million budget (roughly $400 million today) went, it's all right there in widescreen glory, popping your eyes out.
When the production troubles first hit the film and Mamoulian was fired, he had spent $7 million and only had 10 minutes of usable film. The massive sets he built were torn down and new ones were built in Rome per Mankiewicz direction.
None of this should work.
A four-hour-plus historical drama with two different love stories, several wars and enough political plotting to make George Lucas salivate? How does it work?
It does. It's old fashioned, "sit down and watch the entire thing at once" viewing for any lazy weekend or a sick day home. It should bore, it never does.
While the film has the reputation of a "Heaven's Gate" that put United Artists under, in reality, CLEOPATRA was the highest-grossing film of 1963 by earning $57.8 million domestically. However, the massive $44 million price tag meant it took years to turn a profit and did nearly bankrupt 20th Century Fox. Luckily, "The Sound of Music" came along for Fox two years later and became the first movie to ever cross the $100 million mark at the box office. Maria Von Trapp soon replaced Cleopatra in the minds of studio execs.
Sit down, soak it up on the biggest screen you can find and get ready for Cleopatra's entrance into Rome. It's the type of visual spectacle that you'll never see again. Those aren't CGI extras under a matte painting. All those people are real and really on that set, built full size.
Consider this: The Roman forum built at Cinecitta Studios for that sequence was three times the size of the real thing. That pretty much sums up this 1963 film classic.
It's a long, absorbing, enjoyable, sometimes goofy (that wink from Liz!) classic that gets an appreciative B from this view of the Nile.
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