Cleopatra (1963 film)

Cleopatra
File:Cleopatra 1963.jpg
Directed by	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by	Carlo Mario Franzero Sidney Buchman Ben Hecht Ranald MacDougall Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Produced by	Walter Wanger
Starring	Elizabeth Taylor Richard Burton Rex Harrison Jeremy Irons Roddy McDowall Martin Landau Hume Cronyn
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy Jack Hildyard
Edited by	Dorothy Spencer Elmo Williams
Music by	Alex North
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	June 12, 1963
Running time	192 min.
Language	English
Budget	$44 million

Cleopatra is a film that premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City on June 12, 1963. It was produced by Walter Wanger, it was written by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Mario Franzero and was directed by Mankiewicz. It starred Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Richard Burton as Marc Antony, and Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar (nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor). The supporting cast included Roddy McDowall as the villainous Octavian, Martin Landau as Antony's aide Rufio, and as Cleopatra's servant Sosigenes..

The film is infamous for almost bankrupting 20th Century Fox. It was made at a cost of $44 million -- an impossibly extravagant figure for that time; in 2005 dollars it can be priced at $286 million, the most expensive film ever produced (see List of most expensive films (inflation)), partly due to the fact that the film's elaborate, complicated sets, costumes and props had to be constructed twice, once during a botched shoot in London and once more when the production relocated to Rome.

Cleopatra was not a box-office flop by any means, in fact the film grossed more than $23 million and was the highest grossing film of the year, but it was less than just half the budget it took to produce the movie itself. With such astronomical cost and the current price of movie tickets, Cleopatra didn't have a chance of making a profit on its first run and it took several years to break even and the financial loss from the film forced the studio to undertake drastic retrenchments. Supposedly, the film is still listed as a negative cost for Fox today, which means that, technically, the movie still has not made back its initial investment. The suit of golden armor worn in the movie by Elizabeth Taylor was made from real gold, at a cost of about $1 million. It was so heavy that she could only wear it for short periods of time.

Plot

Elizabeth Taylor in "Cleopatra" (1963)

Cleopatra is a story of the heroic, and ultimately doomed, struggle by the young Queen of Egypt to save her county from absorption into the expanding Roman Empire in the mid-first century BC. Part 1 takes place between 48 and 44 BC. Cleopatra pins her hopes on the ascending Roman general, Julius Caesar.

As the movie opens, Caesar has just defeated the army of his primary rival, Pompey, at Pharsalus in Greece. Pompey forces are in ruins and the dead are being cremated. Caesar addresses and pardons the captured officers.

Pompey himself has escaped the carnage and fled by ship to Egypt. (Pompey obviously hoped to recoup his losses with the help of young Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII and his sister Cleopatra VII. Pompey had been made their guardian on the death of their father, Ptolemy Auletes.)

Caesar pursues Pompey and arrives in Alexandria (October 2, 48 BC) on a busy market day. The docks are packed with merchants' stalls and customers. Ptolemey's advisors assume that the Romans will bull their way to the palace, upsetting the populace, but instead, Caesar shops his way through the crowd.

The Pharaoh is a boy and most of his advisors seem to slither. Egypt is in the midst of a Civil War between Cleopatra and Ptolemy and he holds the city. Caesar is presented with Pompey's ring and severed head. (Pompey did not reckon on the deviousness of the Egyptians. When he arrived by ship in Alexandria, his wife and children watched from the deck and Ptolemy watched from the dock as he stepped ashore and was immediately executed by the Egyptian soldiers.) As Caesar sets up in the Palace and is organizing the defenses, a 'rug merchant' arrives with a gift from Cleopatra. The officers are dismissed and Caesar cuts the bindings of the rug and spills the concealed Cleopatra out on the floor.

There ensues a verbal battle over who is the host and who is the guest which goes on for some time after this. In actuality, Caesar and Cleopatra became lovers that first night and Ptolemy was odd-man-out the very next day. (There obviously is no record of who seduced whom, that secret was locked in Caesar's bedroom. It can be said, however, that there is no record of Cleopatra having any other men in her life except Caesar and Mark Antony. Caesar, on the other hand, had a long and semi-public history of sensuality - leaving a trail of lovers all over Gaul and the rest of the Empire.)

Cleopatra spies on Caesar through a peep hole (the Palace is replete with secret passages). Among other things, she discovers that he is epileptic. That disease also afflicted other great men in history we find out later, Hannibal and Alexander among them. Cleopatra in her bath. Cleopatra and Caesar continue the dueling, including an encounter in her bath. She warns that her brother's forces are surrounding the Palace and they vastly outnumber the Romans. Caesar later orders the Egyptian fleet burned (to give him control of the harbor).

That night, the Egyptian ships are ablaze as ordered. The fire unfortunately spreads to the adjacent buildings in the city, including the famous Library of Alexandria. Cleopatra confronts Caesar about the fire, but there is little that can be done about it. He's busy directing the Roman forces in repelling the Egyptian attack on the Palace gate. The Romans sortie to destroy the Egyptian balista (catapults) emplacements using the 'Turtle' - a moving block of men completely covered with their shields on all sides and top.

An attempted poisoning is foiled when Cleopatra's handmaiden notices the taster wipe the rim of the cup after tasting