Cleopatra tells Hollywood’s version of one of history’s great opportunists, Queen Cleopatra, the last ruler of ancient Egypt. The casting of a star of Elizabeth Taylor’s magnitude, would seem to make this film work. It doesn’t. Even with a veteran actor like Rex Harrison, playing Julius Caesar, it doesn’t succeed. Richard Burton tries hard as Marc Antony, and does have a good scene, telling Cleopatra, why he needs to go back and lead his army against Octavian’s much larger army.
This overly long movie, is in two different parts. The first is Cleopatra’s romance with Julius Caesar. She becomes his lover, and moves to Rome with him, accompanied by her son by Caesar. Cleopatra and Caesar’s entry into Rome is an excessive celebration, complete with semi-nude dancers and statues of Egyptian deities. The elite don’t like the idea of Cleopatra ruling with Caesar. They assasinate Caesar, which Cleopatra sees in a vision. Taylor does a good job showing the queen’s fear for her son and horror at Caesar’s death. After this Cleopatra flees to Egypt.The second part is her romance with Mark Antony. Richard Burton as Marc Antony doesn’t do a bad job working with Elizabeth Taylor. The two have recreated on screen, one of history’s most tragic love stories. It’s just that they made better films after this .The second part of the film has a little more going for it. There is a lot of political intrigue, particularly with Roddy McDowell playing Caesar’s nephew and heir, Octavian. It seems an odd bit of casting, but he is good in the role. Despite some good things, in the second part, showing the camp empty; after Antony’s army has deserted, and Antony desperately trying to engage Octavian’s soldiers, in battle, it isn’t enough. Even Antony and Cleopatra’s death scenes, are anticlimactic.
The main reason Cleopatra doesn’t work, is because the actors are lost in the epic. The elaborate sets and costumes overwhelm everything. Even the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor can’t overcome this. This movie doesn’t even succeed as spectacle. The tremendous production costs should have produced a film similar in scope to Ben-Hur. Instead, the result is a very plodding movie, which director Joseph Mankiewicz, could have fixed by cutting the film, by at least an hour.
There aren’t too many epic films that succeed on a financial level, some exceptions being Gone With the Wind and The Longest Day. It’s amazing that a subject as interesting as Cleopatra, could become such a flat film. Hollywood as always, has taken liberty with the facts. One fact was that there were other things that led to Caesar’s death. One of the main causes was him declaring himself dictator. Cleopatra was indirectly responsible, but not the main reason for Caesar’s demise. It’s one point, but Hollywood takes liberty with books as well.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed every type of film from film noir to musicals, like Guys and Dolls. He falls flat with Cleopatra. It takes a lot of things to happen, for a movie to like this to succeed. There is nothing that works in this movie. It’s stars could take the blame, but there is so much blame to go around. The studio is solely responsible for this epic failure. As Shakespeare said, “The fault lies not in the stars, but in ourselves.”