Cleopatra | | Cast : | Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Elizabeth Taylor | | Director : | | | Studio : | Twentieth Century Fox Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, THX, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 01, 1963 | | DVD Released Date : | April 03, 2001 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | G (General Audience) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Elizabeth Taylor was born to play Cleopatra | Content
 | This is the last of the epic movies, or one of the last, that Hollywood ever produced. It has actual sets built out of marble and the locations where authentic and breathtaking and so were the costumes LaTaylor wore. But the real story was the torrid love affair between Liz, who was married to Eddie Fisher at the time and Dick, who was married to some English actress. It was quite the scandal at the time. I remember the fan mag "Silver Screen" I was about 12 or 13 at the time had pictures of Liz & Dick kissing on the Italian Riviera (I thought that was shocking at the time). Although I never thought Liz was a fab actress I always thought she was very beautiful so enjoy the movie for what it is, not historic but Hollywood historic. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 20, 2005 | | Summary | This is a good movie, but WOW is it long.... | Content
| I disagree with one of the previous reviewers who said that Richard Burton appeared as though he were "loaded" throughout this movie. I think that Richard was on his mark when speaking his dialogue, and his mannerisms were believable.
I only gave 4 (actually 4 1/2) stars for this movie because I think there were times when the story was dull and the acting was over-done. Granted, this is an epic story, and in some sense there would be a lot of drama purely because of the subject matter. But I believe that the film felt "heavy" because of the dreary and scheaming characters, along with the staggeringly long length of the film. Let's face it, a person can only sit for just so long and watch people being killed non-stop.
I will say, however, that the sets on this movie were magnificient!!!
It is a known fact in Hollywood that the making of Cleopatra almost bankrupted Twentieth Century Fox. There were so many delays while shooting this movie (Liz Taylor was sick with pneumonia a couple of times, and there were other casting and production problems, etc.) that the budget swelled into an unbelievable $20 million dollars. By 1963 standards, that was a HUGE problem. In light of the money pit that was known as Cleopatra, all other movie productions were shut down on the Fox lot except for Cleopatra, and a movie called "Something's Got to Give." That little known movie starred Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin and was being directed by George Cukor. (eventually the movie was remade with the title "Move Over, Darling" and starred Doris Day and James Garner).
The executives at Fox believed that their two female megastars (Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe) could propel the studio out of the money troubles that were strangling it. Cleopatra, though over-budget, was eventually completed, whereas Something's Got to Give wound up in the annuls of Hollywood history as the final and uncompleted film of the screen goddess, Marilyn Monroe, who died before the film could be completed.
Sorry for my little detour there. I just thought you might like to know some background information about this movie and the studio. I live in Hollywood, California, and I have heard stories about a variety of people and movies for years .
Anyway, this movie Cleopatra is worth a watch, but just allow a large segment of time. Liz Taylor did look beautiful in the film, and her acting was very good. I also think that Rex Harrison did a great job. However, I always loved him best as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
I hope this review was helpful to you, or at least interesting to read. :) |
| Rating | | | Date | July 16, 2005 | | Summary | One of the most outstanding epic films that Hollywood ever produced. | Content
| At 243 minutes, this is one of the longest movies ever made. Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, (including Best Picture) it finally won 4 for its special effects, cinematography, costume design, and art direction. Impressive sets and costumes, remarkable styling, large scale epic scenes (such as Cleopatra's spectacular entrance in Rome or the sea battle in Action), thousands extras, excellent cast and, strangely for Hollywood's productions, a very historically accurate script, based on ancient historians (Plutarch, Suetonius, etc) consist an underrated masterpiece.
It's the widely known tragic story of Queen of Egypt Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC), the last and probably most famous member of the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty, that ruled Egypt from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC until Egypt became a Roman province in 30 BC. Cleopatra tries to maintain control of her kingdom and satisfy her ambitions to unite Egypt and Rome in a great empire by having affairs with Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and later Mark Antony (Richard Burton) after Caesar's assassination. In real life Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton had a passionate affair on the set of this movie and finally became one of the most celebrated couples in Hollywood.
Undoubtedly gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor (in my opinion the best Cleopatra ever on screen) was the ideal choice for the role of Cleopatra, being very close to Plutarch's description: "...For her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible..." (Plutarch, Lives, Anthony). Richard Burton gives a memorable performance as Mark Antony and Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar simply appears the depth of his great talent. Excellent performances too from Roddy McDowall as ruthless Octavian Caesar Augustus, Hume Cronyn (Sosigenes), Cesare Danova (Apollodorus) and Martin Landau (Rufio).
"Cleopatra" actually was an idea of Greek American tycoon, Spyros P. Skouras, Republican Party's leading member and 20th Century Fox's powerful President. His dream was to present the audience a spectacle of unique grandness about the ill-fated last Queen of Egypt Cleopatra, that could compete TV programs, bringing people back to theaters and the success of other similar epics, (such as MGM's Ben Hur). He also wanted to pay a tribute "...to the beautiful Greek Queen of Egypt..." as he stated in an interview. But the movie's astronomical budget (44.000.000 $!!! in 1963, about 1 billion $ today!!!) caused his fall from Fox's "throne". Studio's heads doubted that "Cleopatra" could ever make back its record production costs and so they decided to remove him and terminate his long time reign in 20th Century Fox.. But despite Studio's fears it did well in 1963's box office with approx. 60 million $ grosses only in USA.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz both directed and scripted "Cleopatra" brilliantly (although Skouras's friend Ruben Mamoulian was initially hired as director). Irene Sharaff, Vittorio Nino Novarese and Renie simply deserved the Oscar they won for best costume design and Hermes Pan did a splendid work in choreography.
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| Rating | | | Date | June 08, 2005 | | Summary | This review is only about the packaging of this DVD set! | Content
| Extremely Bad Packaging, Buy Any Import, it's probably better!
I have no words about the movie. It's the best movie of 1962 and I really admire it and don't want to discuss. I bought it for my collection, I'd saw some Dual layer import editions which had very fine Box, print and packaging. Dual layer made in singapore for approximately 15 dollars! I didn't buy that set cause at that time I used to think, import editions are not as good as US edition and don't have collectible value. I bought it made in USA and it completely turned my opinion!
5 star edition of this movie has an Unsusual Silver box which is 1.5 times ticker than an ordinalry DVD keep case! it's plastic quality is terribly low. I bought it brand new, but it originnaly had many wrinkles and the whole box was a little torn cause of low quality of plastic they have used! I returned it and order a new one, It was defected too. I closed my eyes and said well, all of them are same and defected. let's keep it. I opened it. guess what I saw? case had place for only two DVDs. they've put the 3rd disc in a booklet-like paper sleeve whitout any protection. the sleeve couldn't even keep the DVD in it's place. DVD had been removed from it's place during shippment and got terrible scratches. well, what could I do after I saw that? I had removed the shrink wrap and due to rules, they didn't accept to replace it or refund my money!
Now lets talk about made in singapore version. It was pretty a collector's edition. cover was exactly same as shown in amazon.com. It had an hard outer box. inner box had three glassy places for each DVD. it had DTS soundtrack in addition to every feature that the original set has! Contents of the booklet in original set had been printed as the background of glassy DVD holders! DVD prints were better than any original US release DVD i've ever seen and they were all dual-layer DVDs! you are not gonna beleave it, do you? but it's true. all of it for only 15 dollars! and I lost it!
and at last, It's maybe useful to say, fotunately now amazon.com automatically offers Replace or Refund for multiple DVD sets if there had been any Replacement and scrtaches on DVDs! but at that time there was not such a rule |
| Rating | | | Date | May 31, 2005 | | Summary | Leave it to Hollywood | Content
| There's something about Hollywood always leaving gaps in films that deal with history."Cleopatra" did have great dialogue and one can't deny the great cast: Liz Taylor, Rex Harrison, Richard Burton. However, more lavish were the costume changes and the sets, it added color to such a historic and epic story.Some of the story ofcourse is changed to fit it into Hollywood standards. I enjoyed the film particularly that it offered a visual into the lives of history's most controversial figures.There's nothing to truly argue about but the whole issue of Hollywood re-writing history in a film does bug me as most of the time they will change the whole story around. |
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