Comments
Jonas Van Dutch
The 'notoriously bad movie' is the 1963 version, not this one.
Siskoid
I initially had a hard time accepting Claudette Colbert as Cecil B. DeMille's scantily-clad 1934 version of Cleopatra, but eventually did. She has the striking features (if not the ethnicity, well, neither did Liz Taylor), but my experience with the petite comedienne seemed at odds with the unfolding tragedies (essentially a mash-up of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, with the Shakespeare removed). But Colbert lends a coquettish humor to the Egyptian queen, and yet a steely resolve as she must seduce powerful, violent men who are more interested in war than in love - at the risk of falling into her own honey trap each time. Where the film succeeds is in how theatrically over the top it is. It features what has to be one of the most elaborate sex scenes in the history of cinema, and the very violent war sequences are like something out of Eisenstein. Huge, deep sets. Dozens of circus performers and dancers. Did I mention the skimpy costumes? I did? Okay, never mind then.
I initially had a hard time accepting Claudette Colbert as Cecil B. DeMille's scantily-clad 1934 version of Cleopatra, but eventually did. She has the striking features (if not the ethnicity, well, neither did Liz Taylor), but my experience with the petite comedienne seemed at odds with the unfolding tragedies (essentially a mash-up of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, with the Shakespeare removed). But Colbert lends a coquettish humor to the Egyptian queen, and yet a steely resolve as she must seduce powerful, violent men who are more interested in war than in love - at the risk of falling into her own honey trap each time. Where the film succeeds is in how theatrically over the top it is. It features what has to be one of the most elaborate sex scenes in the history of cinema, and the very violent war sequences are like something out of Eisenstein. Huge, deep sets. Dozens of circus performers and dancers. Did I mention the skimpy costumes? I did? Okay, never mind then.
poiatica
How is this a "must-see"? It's a notoriously bad movie!
