![]() It received a generally favorable response from film critics, and became the highest-grossing film of 1963, earning box-office receipts of $57.7 million in the United States and Canada, and one of the highest-grossing films of the decade at a worldwide level. The cost of distribution, print and advertising expenses added a further $13 million to Fox's costs.Ĭleopatra premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City on June 12, 1963. With the estimated production costs totaling $31 million (not counting the $5 million spent on the aborted British shoot), the film became the most expensive film ever made up to that point and nearly bankrupted the studio. Filming wrapped on July 28, 1962, and further reshoots were made from February to March 1963. During filming, a personal scandal made worldwide headlines when it was reported that co-stars Taylor and Richard Burton had an adulterous affair. Production was re-located to Cinecittà, where filming resumed on September 25, 1961, without a finished shooting script. Mamoulian resigned as director and was replaced by Mankiewicz, who had directed Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). Production was suspended in November after it had gone overbudget with only ten minutes of usable footage. Principal photography began at Pinewood Studios on September 28, 1960, but Taylor's health problems delayed further filming. Rouben Mamoulian was hired as director, and the script underwent numerous revisions from Nigel Balchin, Dale Wasserman, Lawrence Durrell, and Nunnally Johnson. Following an extensive casting search, Elizabeth Taylor signed on to portray the title role for a record-setting salary of $1 million. In 1958, his production company partnered with Twentieth Century Fox to produce the film. Walter Wanger had long contemplated producing a biographical film about Cleopatra. It chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra, the young queen of Egypt, to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome. Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, and Martin Landau are featured in supporting roles. ![]() The film stars Elizabeth Taylor in the eponymous role. Mankiewicz, with a screenplay adapted by Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Buchman from the 1957 book The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero, and from histories by Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian. ![]() Nevertheless, for sheer magnificence and recreation of a most critical time in the history of two vanished high civilizations it has never been, and probably never will be, surpassed.$40.3 million (worldwide theatrical rental)Ĭleopatra is a 1963 American epic historical drama film directed by Joseph L. Sure, some of the dialogue stinks, and the movie seems too long (perhaps because so much of it was cut to fit into fours hours). Taylor and Burton were not too bad, but they didn't handle the pompous dialogue as well as Rex Harrison, Hume Cromyn, Martin Landau and especially Roddy McDowell, who was perfection itself and, I believe, accurately portrayed as the very young, ambitious and unscrupulous, but brilliantly intelligent Octavian (later the emperor Augustus). Why? I don't agree with many positive comments about the acting. Liz Taylor in 1963 was not only considered the most beautiful woman in America, she was also thought of as a serial home-breaker and a real threat to the morals of the American Republic. Part of that, though, had to do with the Taylor/Burton affair and the scandal it created. In 1963 the movie was almost universally condemned by critics, and I was just about the only person who admitted that I loved it. I'm pleased to read all the positive reviews of this film, which I first saw when it was released and have seen perhaps five times since.
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