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Posted: |
Aug 11, 2016 - 9:18 AM
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By: |
SoundScope
(Member)
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I'm glad to read the Crowther review, too, but it's worth considering in this context that the distinguished NY Times critic also wrote a similar rave for CLEOPATRA...
Of course, in lieu of the unmitigated crap that is released today especially in the "epic" and "historical" genres, "Cleopatra" in it's blu-ray long form emerges quite favorably. It is certainly one of a kind and the score, the costumes and the sets alone make it interesting to review.
It was a changing time in Hollywood and in the critical world. It became fashionable to dismiss anything that was "old" in those days and that included the old way of making movies. I never thought that CLEOPATRA was as bad as all the hysteria and carping would lead you to believe. It's a far more worthy attempt at drama than most of the gigantic special effects films of today.
I personally never thought Elizabeth Taylor was a good actress, but man, she is an eyeful! Richard Burton is fine, and I find Rex Harrison, as Ceasar, just right with the right touch of irony and wit about the whole huge affair going on about him. The production design, music et. al. are without peer and it has a kind of sleazy classiness about it that is just fun to watch.
Judith Crist be damned. Her comment ..."monumental mouse" may be famous but, again, these board, effete, new school critiques were more concerned about memorable snotty comments than whatever merits could be found in the film.
So, Is CLEOPATRA that terrible? Definitely not. Is PORGY AND BESS? No. There were, as I've said before, films made in their time and of their time.
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Sorry, folks, I didn't mean to imply that CLEOPATRA was worthless, but merely that -- like PORGY AND BESS -- it was nowhere near as great as Crowther said it was.
I, too, appreciate a lot of good things in CLEOPATRA, (including Roddy MacDowall's performance, robbed of an Academy Best Supporting nomination by Fox's failure to submit him properly for consideration), and I even would love to have seen Mankiewicz's envisioned 2-part version. As to the film now looking even better in comparison to modern movie epics, I'm afraid that's largely true about virtually ALL movie genres these days, more's the pity.
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Thanks, Bob, and thanks, Joe. I was at that DGA event, and I'm happy to learn you were, too, and that you made the most of your moment. Purely as a spectator, then, what I remember best was Mr. Mankiewicz bemoaning the loss to film aesthetics resulting from the modern practice of lengthy end credits. He said it robs the audience of the true experience, the one we used to have when the movie would reach its climax, it would have its immediate impact on us, and then Boom!, the music would conclude, the lights would come up, and we'd be left to still feel and ponder the moment -- and perhaps discuss it, if we were with friends or family. "Look at that clip they just showed of the end of THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. Can you imagine anything more powerful than that, it's perfect just the way it is. It'd be ruined if they tacked on five more minutes of credits..."
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I believe Foster helped present that screening at the L.A. American Cinematheque -- was it really nine years ago? Jeepers.
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In the 90s, the directors guilds had a tribute to Joe Mankiewicz with many great looking clips from his films.
Afterward there was a Q and A with him,
When all was finished I went up to the stage to speak to the great man himself. He STILL wanted to restore Cleo to his original length - he said it was about 6 and 1/2 hours.
It would be interesting to see.
I'd love to see the restored CLEOPATRA! But, many efforts have yet to turn up any of the lost footage. Principal reason it was all cut into one film was the heightened public interest in the Taylor/Burton affair. Zanuck couldn't release a "Caesar and Cleopatra," because he believed the moviegoing public wanted to see Taylor and Burton carrying on. Burton wouldn't have had much to do in "Caesar and Cleopatra;" so he cut them together.
There is a website called Trivette's Tribute to CLEOPATRA that specifies all the cut scenes. It used to have a lot of color photos of the deleted scenes, but now all it seems to contain are b&w ones. But very interesting to read.
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At the time of its deluxe of THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE's DVD release, it was announced that a number of deleted scenes had been discovered, unfortunately too late to be included in the package.
I have a book about the film which details them, mostly about corruption in the second half of the film, including Eric Portman's assassination of Finlay Currie on the floor of the Senate. A subsidiary character, played by Guy Rolfe, disappeared from the storyline altogether, though he can still be seen, chained to a stake next to where Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd get attached.
I can remember a scene, later cut, from the first half of the film where Boyd and Plummer get drunk and stand on a parapet above a wooden stockade below, filled with barbarian prisoners. They each choose a barbarian woman to have sex with, which leads to the next scene, where Plummer is trying to force wine onto one of them. This scene was in the film when I first saw it, as a roadshow, in May of 1964, but it has never been restored to any version since. (Expectedly, it's not exactly PC...)
And, if you're interested, try the "Trivette's Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor" for the CLEO restorations. It's quite extensive, and includes all kinds of deleted scenes.
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