Missing a slam dunk

Sean Egan

THE LIKES OF ISHTAR and Waterworld may have succeeded it in the public imagination as bywords for Hollywood excess, but for a certain generation 1963’s Cleopatra is the quintessential more-money-than-sense film. Throughout the 1950s, “sword and sandal” movies did huge business, from Quo Vadis (1951) to Ben-Hur (1959). An epic about the female pharaoh who purely as political tactic seduced first Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony therefore seemed a slam dunk. So much so that Elizabeth Taylor, in the role of the Queen of the Nile, became the first actor to receive a $1 million fee. As if that wasn’t enough, she insisted for tax reasons that filming take place outside the USA. The terrible decision-making that afflicted the production started there, leaving aside the fact the script hadn’t been finalised…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August - September 2023

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