I don't get the reverence attached to this film. It's a plodding, unsightly mess, pompously over-acted and stiffly staged. Elizabeth Taylor looks bloated, and Richard Burton chews the scenery unmercifully. I forced myself to watch the whole thing last night and it was not easy to keep from laughing in places. It's amazing what people would sit through in 1963.
Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement. FZ
Although I saw the movie originally in a theater (which helps over a small TV screen), I have never been able to sit through the entire thing in one sitting ever since. Just last night, I made it about 45 minutes from the beginning before I had had enough.
It is just too plodding, people marching about in huge corridors. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance, but little substance.
I did find Taylor's performance to be very thin. She is one of the least regal of movie queens.
This movie was baaaddd. Yikes I was tying my hardest to get through the whole thing, but started fast forwarding. Could. Not. Take. It! Now it's not the worst movie ever made, but still won't ever sit through it again. Elizabeth Taylor looked beautiful. Her acting was hit or miss. She had great screen presence, but just seemed to scratch the surface in terms of her performance. Burton was really bad though he chewed so much scenery it's a miracle any of it was left for the movie. I think the actor who played Caeser did the best job in this underwhelming long movie.
shareThe sets and costumes were great; the rest was a god-awful mess.
Liz was fat and Richard was a ham but Roddy was damn good.
Okay, you guys destroy ALL credibility to your arguments when you say "Liz was fat". I watched the film again recently (Yes, AGAIN!) and I thought the same thing I thought the first time, that she was drop dead stunningly beautiful. She was beautifully curvaceous.
http://41.media.tumblr.com/0094cd818f93dacccfa1c61ec311a882/tumblr_mwpj95vH1W1rid6xfo1_400.jpg
https://lisawallerrogers.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/liz-on-cleo-set.jpg?w=1500&h=1950
If that's what you call "Fat" I dread seeing what you call "Thin".
Favourite movie of all time: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
The first picture is not from the finished Cleopatra, it's from the previous attempt of shooting Cleopatra in London, she was thinner and had way better costumes. The Irene Sharaff costumes MADE HER LOOK FAT, and she was way heavier and for the first time ever in film she had a double chin, so yeah she looked heavy.
shareI own the movie on Blu-ray, looking at it again, it's still not what I would call fat.
http://41.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxemhhoaGm1r4lsbyo1_1280.jpg
Favourite movie of all time: "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
She doesn't look thin, she looks large and not really in a good way, there is no waist in that picture, you can tell she's cinched by the belt but she still looks big with all those extra layers and that is the point, the clothes were too stuffy, way too much.
shareThis movie was tough to make it through. Rex Harrison was great though, and I personally feel the soundtrack had a lot of effort put into it. Aside from that though, I don't recommend it.
shareIt's a plodding, unsightly mess, pompously over-acted and stiffly staged. Elizabeth Taylor looks bloated, and Richard Burton chews the scenery unmercifully.
I concur. This was extremely difficult to watch. Artificial, too long, terrible performances, at the same time comical and monstrous. And this is not due to the time period because there were movies in the 50s and 60s that had good acting in them, and were not such over the top messes.
shareMeh it's alright. Not a masterpiece. It's forgettable.
shareI just read Eddie Fisher's book, "Been there, Done That", and his recounting of this period is very interesting...who the heck knows what really went on but parts of his account coincides with what can easily be observed in the movie. Liz was zonked on pills and booze and cost the production millions. Dick was just as bad. Liz was bloated and sick and took hours in costume and makeup to appear beautiful - and she was! This movie only has value as a Hollywood debacle.
Only the suppressed word is dangerous
Ludwig Borne
I literally just finished it and it was mostly just used as background noise while I worked on my visual novel game. I gotta say that it was quite boring. I feel like it just dragged on and on and that there was a lot that could have been cut to make it a shorter movie. I don't see why it needed to be 4 hours long. And, then, to hear that there's at least an hour or more of lost footage? Sheesh.
shareI watched the trailer, and saw enough to know this film is no good.
I love historical films , but this one is dated , and was bad back then too.
They spent money on dazzle and size, but the acting, dialogue ,story was lame.
it is also too english for me. The accents are just not fitting.
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