Storyline
Historical epic. The triumphs and tragedy of the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.The winner of four Oscars, this epic saga of love, greed and betrayal stars Elizabeth Taylor as the passionate and ambitious Egyptian queen who's determined to hold on to the throne and seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison). When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony (Richard Burton), who vows to take power -- but Caesar's successor (Roddy McDowall) has other plans.
Directors
Cast
Martin Landau, Francesca Annis, Jacqueline Chan, Roddy McDowall, Hume Cronyn, Martin Benson, Richard Burton, Marne Maitland, Douglas Wilmer, John Doucette, Cesare Danova, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Hordern, Robert Stephens, Andrew Keir, Isabel Cooley, George Cole, Carroll O'Connor, Kenneth Haigh, Michael Gwynn, Rex Harrison, Pamela Brown, Grégoire Aslan, John Hoyt, Andrew Faulds, Peter Grant, Richard O'Sullivan, Gwen Watford, Marie Devereux, Herbert Berghof
Trailer
Reviews
100
Taylor, Burton, and Harrison are sublime in this sweeping epic of love and nations.
80
Joseph L Mankiewicz's four-hour Cleopatra is a stately but sometimes mindboggling spectacle. The central moment is the queen's jawdropping entry into Rome, for which Mankiewicz creates a sensational Busby Berkeley fantasy, like the world's biggest Olympic opening ceremony.
80
Cleopatra is not a great movie. But it is primarily a vast, popular entertainment that sidesteps total greatness for broader appeal. This is not an adverse criticism, but a notation of achievement.
80
Forget the length of time it took to make it and all the tattle of troubles they had, including the behavior of two of its spotlighted stars. The memorable thing about this picture is that it is a surpassing entertainment, one of the great epic films of our day. By virtue of brilliant staging, Mr. Mankiewicz keeps this well-known tale moving with visual excitements that increase the dramatic flow and give extraordinary insights into the characters.
80
Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra is put together of the stuff of legend that the director experienced as personal reality, and he filmed the story as if he had been there. The film may be as close as Hollywood gets, outside the realm of Orson Welles, to a cinematic simulacrum of Shakespeare, less in its lucidly incisive, rhetorically reserved images than in its blend of coruscating language, rowdy comedy, and grand yet urgent and intimate performances.
