Cleopatra

I think I'm in the minority in preferring this to the Mankiewicz version. DeMille's Cleopatra is visually audacious and uncompromisingly feminist. Colbert gives a wonderful performance.

Viewed September 10, 2021. Everybody seems to be on a different wavelength with regards to how seriously they should treat the material, but as feverish spectacle, it's a blast. DeMille offers shot after shot of luscious production design, and he positions his actors as just another extension of that. For example, there's a shot of a group of women holding jewel-filled clams that he frames as just a bunch of disconnected limbs, and the resulting composition is basically just abstract art.

The first third was pretty standard but efficient story set-up with great production & confident acting and the ending ramped up explosive spectacle like nobody's business but for me it was the middle part that stood out with its peculiar fetishistic feminism and orgiastic extravagance.

The first thing I noticed about this movie aside from the luscious sets was the fact that all the actors did well in their role except for Claudette Colbert who plays her role like a '20s/'30s mob moll and it seems decidedly out of place. The big battle sequence was both a plus and a minus as it was quite impressive looking but the whole montage thing took me out of it.

it's a pretty decently written movie, good story and good sets and costumes, but i found colbert to be a bit overbearing at times. i look forward to seeing the remake because the demille version isn't quite up to snuff.

This version is now overshadowed by the lavish Taylor-Burton version; this one can still wow you with impressive sets and costumes (which make you wish it had been in color). It's more of a Reader's Digest condensed version, though; the viewer is left to fill in a bit of the historical bits. Colbert gets in some impish moments which sometimes breaks her otherwise hypnotic performance.

Great performance by Colbert and way ahead of it's time in terms of epic performances. Somewhat inferior to the Mankiewicz remake which is essentially the same movie with 30 years of refining the story. It showed in both dialog and depth.

A Colbert é mesmo muito diva.

Nothing too crazy here, but given that this was one of the first cinematic adaptation of Cleopatra's story, it is done fairly. Cleopatra is portrayed as a woman whose only interest is to seduce the powerful and shows zero political skill, but that's quite in line even with 19th century literally portrayals, so what can you expect? Given the time period it was created in, this is a decent production. Recommended to crazy Rome fanatics like myself and to old cinema fans. Definitely skip otherwise.

Grand production values keep you going, but this is rather hollow and at times choppily handled (that awful war sequence), and the actors are not right. No feeling, or thought, but the sensuality of light and surfaces. DeMille!

A grand production headed by Cecil B. DeMille! And few men does grand quite like him. I guess one can call it the DeMille touch. Epic scenes and artistic presentations. Real majestic sets... being the second most stunning thing about this. The most stunning of course is Claudette Colbert as the lady herself - Cleopatra! The story wasn't always as alluring, but it comes together well with true love developing and enough political troubles to fill the rest of the space.