Word: cleopatras
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...since the days of Cecil B. DeMille's glorious extravaganzas have movie audiences been able to sit in rapture of anything as truly Hollywood as "Caesar and Cleopatra." It fits all the adjectives a cinema press-agent can wholesale: colossal, stupendous, terrific. Scenes of giant Egyptian idols against a red, evening sky, the sand-swept Sphinx, the great columns of Cleopatra's palace, are all magnificent, but unhappily they obscure the important element-a scenario by Bernard Shaw...
Despite its two-hour length, "Caesar and Cleopatra" never begins to take shape. At every moment it seems as if the action and dialogue might move towards some unity, and then the cameral swings back to the spectacle of a thousand exotic extras milling in the shadow of a fabulous temple. The development of Caesar, the materialist with an idealistic end, comes in snatches of crisp Shavian dialogue, but the entire effect is uneven and erratic. As the Roman conqueror, Claude Rains is excellent. He plays his part with intelligence and a calmness unmoved by the grandeur about him. Vivian...
...become fashionable to think of Shaw as a little musty and more than a little talkative, but audiences are likely to wonder whether it is possible to get enough movie talk as good as this. Caesar and Cleopatra was written nearly 50 years ago, but as a comedy of youth and age it is an enduring delight; it is also a fascinating, vividly contemporary study of leadership. Shaw has examined the complexities of cynicism and benevolence, megalomania and selflessness, intuitiveness and hard reason, passive resistance and calm brutality, which combined to make the soldier-statesman. His portrait shows Caesar...
...battlefield than on it." Claude Rains's excellent performance makes that observation valid. As for Vivien Leigh, probably few actresses could have drawn as much fun, understanding and beauty out of Shaw's exquisite, violent, brilliant baby Queen. There are other excellent jobs: Flora Robson as Ftatateeta, Cleopatra's savage nurse; Anthony Harvey as her petulant, bewildered little brother; Francis L. Sullivan as the corrupt councilor, and Stewart Granger as Apollodorus...
Some of the experts whose job it is to hawk this film to U.S. moviegoers shook their heads mournfully after casing the well-set-up, well-exposed Granger torso. If Cleopatra, they decided, had only given Apollodorus the suggestion of a royal high sign for a command performance-no matter how far off-screen-it would have given the picture Sex. However that may be, and however well it makes out as spectacle, Caesar and Cleopatra is vintage Shaw: a wise and winning comedy, beautifully played...