| Overall Grade: |
A- |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
B |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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One That Shouldn't Be Cut
by Eric Ryder (movies profile)
Dec 5, 2007
Originally, this movie was meant to last 6 hours. But was then cut by 5 1/4 and to about 4 hours and cut further to 3 hours which caused Elizabeth Taylor to throw up. Personlly, I'd like to have seen the five hour version because if it was cut even further, the two biggest stars of the movie fade out into oblivion: Egypt and Rome. Without the identification of the settings of this period piece, it feels claustrophic, in spite of the obvious grandiosity. Therefore, I'm all in favour for the fully-restored version.
When it comes to acting, Elizabeth Taylor was pretty good in both character and dialogue. It was as if she really let herself into the role. Rex Harrison is also wonderful as the noble-mannered Julius Caesar. The sad story was that Sir Richard Burton was quite weak as Marc Antony. His scenes with Elizabeth Taylor dragged on a bit too long shifting into sentimental mush. And when Burton delivered his lines, he stumbled upon them and never recovered. A little miscasting was done in the parts of Roddy McDowall as Octavian and Martin Landau as Rufio. If they would've switched roles, they could've been Supporting Actor nods at the Acedemy Awards.
For the curious eye, this movie is worth a look (especially the uncut version). The production design is simply astonishing. The script itself should've won a Noble Prize for literature as it's one of the best written scripts in the history of filmmaking. Director Joseph Mankiewicz was more prolific as a writer than as director and it shows here because many of the shots and the scenes are a bit choppy and the actors are leaned towards depending on themselves rather than the director.
Back then at $44 million dollars in its budget (which is peanuts by today's standards), the movie itself nearly closed down 20th Century Fox. And even though many films have had bigger budgets, "Cleopatra" is still the biggest grossing film in its time. |
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