Cleopatra (1963 film)

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Cleopatra
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by	Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Produced by	Walter Wanger
Screenplay by	Joseph L. Mankiewicz Ranald MacDougall Sidney Buchman
Based on	The Life and Times of Cleopatra by C.M. Franzero Histories by Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian
Starring	Elizabeth Taylor Richard Burton Rex Harrison Roddy McDowall Martin Landau Hume Cronyn George Cole
Music by	Alex North
Cinematography	Leon Shamroy
Edited by	Dorothy Spencer
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date	June 12, 1963 (1963-06-12) (United States)
Running time	248 minutes[1]
Country	United States[2]
Language	English
Budget	$31.1 million[3]
Box office	$57.8 million (US)[4]

Cleopatra is a 1963 American epic historical drama film chronicling the struggles of Cleopatra, the young Queen of Egypt, to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with a screenplay adapted by Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Buchman from the book The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero, and from histories by Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, and Martin Landau.

Cleopatra achieved notoriety during its production for its massive cost overruns and production troubles, which included changes in director and cast, a change of filming locale, sets that had to be constructed twice, lack of a firm shooting script, and personal scandal around co-stars Taylor and Burton. It was the most expensive film ever made up to that point and almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

It was the highest-grossing film of 1963, earning box-office of $57.7 million in the United States (equivalent to $461 million in 2017), yet lost money due to its production and marketing costs of $44 million (equivalent to $352 million in 2017), making it the only film ever to be the highest-grossing film of the year to run at a loss.^[5] Cleopatra later won four Academy Awards, and was nominated for five more, including Best Picture (which it lost to Tom Jones).

Plot[edit]

After the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC, Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) goes to Egypt, under the pretext of being named the executor of the will of the young Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII (Richard O'Sullivan) and his sister Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor)'s father.

Cleopatra convinces Caesar to restore her throne from her younger brother. Caesar, in effective control of the kingdom, sentences Pothinus (Gregoire Aslan) to death for arranging an assassination attempt on Cleopatra, and banishes Ptolemy to the eastern desert, where he and his outnumbered army would face certain death against Mithridates. Cleopatra is crowned Queen of Egypt, and begins to develop megalomaniacal dreams of ruling the world with Caesar, who in turn desires to become King of Rome. They marry, and when their son Caesarion is born, Caesar accepts him publicly, which becomes the talk of Rome and the Senate.

After he is made dictator for life, Caesar sends for Cleopatra. She arrives in Rome in a lavish procession and wins the adulation of the Roman people. The Senate grows increasingly discontented amid rumors that Caesar wishes to be made king, which is anathema to the Romans. On the Ides of March in 44 BC, a group of conspirators assassinate Caesar and flee the city, starting a rebellion. An alliance between Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, Mark Antony, Caesar's right-hand man and general as well as Marcus Ameilius Lepidus put down the rebellion and split up the republic between themselves. Cleopatra is angered after Caesar's will recognizes Octavian instead of Caesarion as his official heir, and angrily returns to Egypt.

While planning a campaign against Parthia in the east, Antony realizes he needs money and supplies, and cannot get enough from anywhere but Egypt. After refusing several times to leave Egypt, Cleopatra gives in and meets him in Tarsus. The two begin a love affair, with Cleopatra assuring Anthony that he is much more than a pale reflection of Caesar.

Octavian's removal of Lepidus forces Anthony to return to Rome, where he marries Octavian's sister, Octavia, to prevent conflict, much to Cleopatra's distraughtness and enragement. Anthony and Cleopatra reconcile and marry, with Anthony divorcing Octavia. Octavian, incensed, reads Anthony's will to the Roman senate, revealing that the latter wishes to be buried in Egypt. Rome turns against Anthony, and Octavian's call for war against Egypt receives a rapturous response.

The war is decided at the naval Battle of Actium on September 2, 31 BC, where Octavian's fleet, under the command of Agrippa, defeats the Antony-Egyptian fleet. Cleopatra assumes Antony is dead and orders the Egyptian forces home. Antony follows, leaving his fleet leaderless and soon defeated.

Several months later, Cleopatra manages to convince Antony to retake command of his troops and fight Octavian's advancing army. However, Antony's soldiers abandon him during the night; Rufio (Martin Landau), the last man loyal to Antony, kills himself. Antony tries to goad Octavian into single combat, but is finally forced to flee into the city.

When Antony returns to the palace, Apollodorus, not believing that Antony is worthy of his queen, convinces him that she is dead, whereupon Antony falls on his own sword. Apollodorus then confesses that he misled Antony and assists him to the tomb where Cleopatra and two servants have taken refuge. Antony dies in Cleopatra's arms.

Octavian and his army march into Alexandria with Caesarion's dead body in a wagon. He discovers the dead body of Apollodorus, who had poisoned himself. Octavian receives word that Antony is dead and Cleopatra is holed up in a tomb. There he offers her his word that he will allow her to rule Egypt as a Roman province in return for her agreeing to accompany him to Rome. Cleopatra knows her son is dead and agrees to Octavian's terms, including a pledge not to harm herself.

After Octavian departs, she orders her servants in coded language to assist with her suicide. Octavian realizes that she is going to kill herself and he and his guards burst into Cleopatra's chamber and find her dressed in gold, and dead, along with her servants, while an asp crawls along the floor.

Cast[edit]

Taylor as Cleopatra.

Production[edit]

As the story of Cleopatra had proved a hit in 1917 for silent-screen legend Theda Bara, and was remade in 1934 with Claudette Colbert, 20th Century Fox executives hired veteran Hollywood producer Walter Wanger in 1958 to shepherd another remake of Cleopatra into production. Although the studio originally sought a relatively cheap production of $2 million, Wanger envisioned a much more opulent epic, and in mid-1959 successfully negotiated a higher budget of $5 million. Rouben Mamoulian was assigned to direct and Elizabeth Taylor was awarded a record-setting contract of $1 million. Filming began in England but in January 1961 Taylor became so ill that production was shut down. Sixteen weeks of production and costs of $7 million had produced just ten minutes of film. Fox was reimbursed by the insurance company and Mamoulian was fired.^[6]

Costume worn by Richard Burton in the film, displayed at the Cinecittà studios in Rome, Italy

Joseph L. Mankiewicz was brought on to the production after Mamoulian's departure and the set moved to Cinecittà, outside of Rome. Peter Finch and Stephen Boyd left the production owing to other commitments and were replaced by Rex Harrison and Richard Burton, as Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony respectively. During filming, Taylor met Burton and the two began an adulterous affair; the scandal made headlines worldwide, since both were married to others, and brought bad publicity to the already troubled production. Mankiewicz was later fired during the editing phase, only to be rehired to reshoot the opening battle scenes in Spain.^[6]

The cut of the film which Mankiewicz screened for the studio was six hours long. This was cut to four hours for its initial premiere, but the studio demanded (over the objections of Mankiewicz) that the film be cut once more, this time to just barely over three hours to allow theaters to increase the number of showings per day.^[7] Mankiewicz unsuccessfully attempted to convince the studio to split the film in two in order to preserve the original cut. These were to be released separately as Caesar and Cleopatra followed by Antony and Cleopatra.^[6]

Cleopatra ended up costing $31 million, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time,^[3] and almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.^[5]

Soundtrack[edit]

The music of Cleopatra was scored by Alex North. It was released several times, first as an original album, and later versions were extended. The most popular of these was the Deluxe Edition or 2001 Varèse Sarabande album.

Reception[edit]

A reviewer for Time said, "As drama and as cinema, Cleopatra is riddled with flaws. It lacks style both in image and in action."^[8] Judith Crist concurred, calling it "a monumental mouse".^[9] Even star Elizabeth Taylor found it wanting, saying, "They had cut out the heart, the essence, the motivations, the very core, and tacked on all those battle scenes. It should have been about three large people, but it lacked reality and passion. I found it vulgar."^[10]

Positive reactions came from such publications as Variety, which wrote, "Cleopatra is not only a supercolossal eye-filler (the unprecedented budget shows in the physical opulence throughout), but it is also a remarkably literate cinematic recreation of an historic epoch."^[8] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "one of the great epic films of our day".^[11]

Retrospective reviews have been more forgiving towards it. American film critic Emanuel Levy said, "Much maligned for various reasons, [...] Cleopatra may be the most expensive movie ever made, but certainly not the worst, just a verbose, muddled affair that is not even entertaining as a star vehicle for Taylor and Burton."^[8] Billy Mowbray for the website of British television channel Film4 remarked that the film is "A giant of a movie that is sometimes lumbering, but ever watchable thanks to its uninhibited ambition, size and glamour."^[8]

At an audience level the film was a major hit, grossing $57.8 million in the United States and Canada,^[4] and in the process became the most successful film of 1963.^[12] Despite the film's popularity, however, Fox's income of $40.3 million earned from its share of the global ticket sales was not enough to cover the film's $44 million costs. Fox eventually recouped its investment in 1966 when it sold the television broadcast rights to ABC.^[13]

Awards and nominations[edit]

The film won four Academy Awards and was nominated for five more.^[14][15] It also earned Elizabeth Taylor a Guinness World Record title, "Most costume changes in a film"; Taylor made 65 costume changes. This record was beaten in 1968 in the film Star! by Julie Andrews with 125 costume changes.

50th Anniversary restored version[edit]

Schawn Belston, serving as senior vice president of library and technical services for 20th Century Fox, was put in charge of creating a restored version of the film for the company. After a two-year process in 2013 he was able to restore a four-hour, eight-minute version. One of Belston's finds for this version was the original camera negative which was shot on 65mm. (Any longer version, which has yet to be found, would have existed only to show then-studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck.) Fading and damage to the negative were corrected digitally with an eye on preserving detail and authenticity while avoiding digital manipulation.^[16] Belston's team also had the original magnetic print masters which they used to restore the sound. They removed the clicks and hisses, then with the aid of the trained ears of musicians reconfigured the track for 5.1 surround sound.^[16]

On May 21, 2013, the restored film was shown at a special screening at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, to commemorate its 50th anniversary.^[17] It was later released as a 50th-anniversary version available on DVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately Fox had long ago destroyed all of the trims and outs from negatives to save costs, preventing the release of traditional outtakes. The home media packages did include commentary tracks and two short films: "The Cleopatra Papers" and a 1963 film about the elaborate sets "The Fourth Star of Cleopatra".^[16]

See also[edit]

• List of American films of 1963
• Roman Republic
• Ancient Egypt
• Ptolemaic dynasty
• Sword and sandal epics
• List of historical drama films
• List of films set in ancient Rome
• List of films based on military books (pre-1775)

References[edit]

• Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood, a 2001 television documentary
• Ilias Chrissochoidis (ed.), The Cleopatra Files: Selected Documents from the Spyros P. Skouras Archive (Stanford, 2013).

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cleopatra (1963 film).

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cleopatra (1963 film)

• Cleopatra on IMDb
• Cleopatra at the TCM Movie Database
• Cleopatra at Box Office Mojo
• Cleopatra at Rotten Tomatoes