Caesar and Cleopatra Reviews

Don't be misled. Don't try to convince yourself this is wonderful entertainment, don't second guess your basic instinct. Yes, it's Shaw's acerbic and uncinematic play, but Pascal has slowed it down to a lumbering crawl and puffed it up to VIP dinosaur status. Two finer stars being saddled hopelessly we cannot recall, but this occasion frankly finds Rains dishing up ham too readily, and Leigh sorely lacking in the siren department (the arrival of handsome Stewart Granger barely rates a glance). Indeed, this doom laden production was far more interesting behind the cameras than it was in front of them. Irascible Shaw became so fond of Leigh that he broke precedent and actually wrote an entirely new scene for her, although he adamantly refused to introduce "a little love interest" into the script as politely requested by producer J. Arthur Rank. Producer-director Pascal went at CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA with a vengeance, intent on proving that the British film industry could rival in scope anything Hollywood could create, particularly in the belt-tightening years of WWII. The result was the most extravagantly expensive film Britain produced up to that time, so opulent that when Shaw first viewed it he expressed annoyance at the lavish sets, the hordes of extras, and spendthrift feel of the overall production. American distribution was promoted by Rank and United Artists with an enormous budget that initially caused US audiences to flock to see favorites Leigh and Rains; but disappointment soon set in when viewers emerged bored, and the Rank organization sustained staggering losses--some $3 million--that brought it to the very brink of bankruptcy. But from the ranks of the film's over 100 bit players emerged many a star, including Michael Rennie, who plays a Centurion, Kay Kendall, a slave girl, and Jean Simmons, a harpist.