Cleopatra (1963)

The Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton version of Cleopatra has been in the FXM rotation recently. I thought it had an airing today and tomorrow, and was planning to do a post on it today for tomorrow's airing, but it turns out this week's airings were yesterday and today. Oops. At any rate, having watched it, it's still worth blogging about.

This version of Cleopatra is really two movies in one. Based on various biographies, one contemporary and several ancient, the movie opens up a couple of years before the death of Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison). Rome has been in one of its periods of Civil Wars, with Julius Caesar, then a general, having defeated Pompey. Pompey fled to Egypt, which was nominally independent but really a vassal state of Rome. So Julius Caesar goes to Alexandria to try to find Pompey.

Meanwhile, Egypt has its own problems. Ptolemy XIII is the emperor, but he's got a sister in Cleopatra (obviously Elizabeth Taylor) whom he's been trying to banish. The Egyptians, understandably, also don't really like being a vassal state. Still, they kind of have to give Julius Caesar some fine accommodations at the royal palace. However, it's a palace full of secret passages and hiding spaces, which gives the supporters of Cleopatra the ability to smuggle her into the palace in order to meet Julius Caesar and hopefully get him to take her side in the Egyptian power struggle.

Cleopatra being so beautiful, Julius starts thinking with his lower head than the one on top of his neck, and not only takes her side, but also marries her with the intention of increasing his power back in Rome. After the wedding, he even brings her to Rome in a lavish spectacle as well has having another son by her, which is a bit of an issue since he's already got an adopted son in Octavian (played as an adult in the second half of the movie by Roddy McDowall). The Senate, in what is supposed to be a republic, is increasingly disturbed by Caesar's power-hungry desires, so of course they kill him on the Ides of March. Everybody else lived happily ever after.

While the death of Julius Caesar might be a good place to end a story, this is Cleopatra, and she's got another half of her life to live. So instead of end titles, we get entr'acte music before the second half of the movie. Caesar having been killed, there's now a power vacuum in Rome, with a new triumvirate of Octavian, Marc Antony (Richard Burton), and a third general who is less important to the story. They make three provinces out of the lands under Roman control, with each of them nominally getting one-third of the not-yet empire.

Cleopatra, meanwhile, has returned to Alexandria, since Julius Caesar made Octavian his legal heir, and she's got a country to manage anyway, even if it is a vassal state. Antony is still fighting for war, but needs more resources, and is forced to ask Cleopatra for them. Antony, meeting Cleopatra, also starts thinking with his wrong head. But he at least has the good sense to realize that Roman politics is complicated and dangerous, and that he has to marry a Roman woman for political reasons.

He still loves Cleopatra, however, and when things seem to calm down, he finally divorces his Roman wife and marries Cleopatra, which really enrages Octavian, who sets out for Egypt for what ought to be the decisive showdown, except that everybody is able to escape Egypt by water leading to the real decisive showdown at the naval Battle of Actium off the northwestern coast of Greece. If you know your history, you know how it turned out.

Cleopatra as a movie has a whole bunch of problems, many of them caused by producer Walter Wanger's desire to make this movie the grandest spectacle ever put on screen. That, combined with Elizabeth Taylor's illness that nearly killed her and then Taylor's love affair with Richard Burton, caused all sorts of controversy and budget-busting delays. The spectacle is easy to see on film, and it's not terribly surprising that the film got Oscar nods for production design and costume design.

In terms of story, well, that's where the spectacle creates more problems. The film plods along, coming in at 251 minutes inclduing the overture/entr'acte/exit music. There are two clearly defined halves, which apparently was deliberate on the part of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who would have preferred to see two distinct movies, one of each half. Indeed, that would probably work better artistically. As it is, we get something that's frustratingly slow, with perhaps one bright spot in highlighting the complexity of the political problems Cleopatra faces.

Still, this version of Cleopatra should be seen at least once, in part for the spectacle and in part to see just why the movie nearly bankrputed Fox.