Cleopatra (1963 film)

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 (Grégoire 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 (Richard Burton), 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 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 Antony that he is much more than a pale reflection of Caesar. Octavian's removal of Lepidus forces Antony to return to Rome, where he marries Octavian's sister, Octavia, to prevent conflict, upsetting and enraging Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra reconcile and marry, with Antony divorcing Octavia. Octavian, incensed, reads Antony's will to the Roman senate, revealing that the latter wishes to be buried in Egypt. Rome turns against Antony, 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 resume 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, and the asp which killed her.

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

Headdress worn by Elizabeth Taylor in the film

The story of Cleopatra had proved a hit in 1917 for silent-screen legend Theda Bara. Paramount's 1934 production, using different source material and starring Claudette Colbert, was a huge success. In 1958, 20th Century Fox executives hired veteran Hollywood producer Walter Wanger to shepherd another film about 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.[4]

To replace Mamoulian, Elizabeth Taylor granted she would approve one of two directors she had worked with: George Stevens — A Place in the Sun — or Joseph L. Mankiewicz — Suddenly Last Summer. Stevens was tangled up in pre-production for his epic, The Greatest Story Ever Told, so Mankiewicz was courted to take over. By hiring Mankiewicz, the producers got two birds with one contract: Mankiewicz would direct and write the screenplay. However, to attract Mankiewicz to a project that he was not enthusiastic about cost Twentieth Century Fox a major expense: the studio agreed to take Mankiewicz's independent production company off his hands for $3 million.[5] The production moved to the more appropriate climes of 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.[4]

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.[6] Mankiewicz unsuccessfully attempted to convince the studio to split the film in two in order to preserve the original cut. These would have been released separately, as Caesar and Cleopatra followed by Antony and Cleopatra.[4]

Cleopatra ended up costing $31 million, not including distribution costs making it the most expensive film ever made, at the time.[3] It almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox.[7] Fox shut down a number of other productions to pour money assigned to them into Cleopatra, including the Marilyn Monroe film Something's Got to Give. In his book Marilyn: A Biography, Norman Mailer puts some of the blame for Monroe's suicide on the studio's halting production on her movie.[8] In a bid for cash, the studio sold a 180-acre backlot to developers, resulting in the creation of Century City. [9]

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.

The film won four Academy Awards and was nominated for five more.[19][20] 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.

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.[21] 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.[21]

On May 21, 2013, the restored film was shown at a special screening at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, to commemorate its 50th anniversary.[22] 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.[21]

• List of American films of 1963
• Roman Republic
• Ancient Egypt
• Ptolemaic dynasty
• Sword-and-sandal
• Lists of historical films
• List of films set in ancient Rome
• List of book-based war films (wars before 1775)

• 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).

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