CLEOPATRA

1934, 101 mins. 35 mm print source: UCLA Film & TV Archive.
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Bartlett Cormack, Waldemar Young, Vincent Lawrence. Produced by Cecil B. DeMille. Edited by Anne Bauchens. Photographed by Victor Milner. Original Music by Rudolph G. Kopp. Costume Design by Travis Banton. Principal Cast: Claudette Colbert (as Queen Cleopatra), Warren William (Julius Caesar), Henry Wilcoxon (Marc Antony), Joseph Schildkraut (King Herod), Ian Keith (Octavian), Gertrude Michael (Calpurnia), C. Aubrey Smith (Enobarbus), Irving Pichel (Apollodorus), Arthur Hohl (Brutus), Edwin Maxwell (Casca), Ian Maclaren (Cassius), Leonard Mudie (Pothinos), Claudia Dell (Octavia), Eleanor Phelps (Charmian), John Rutherford (Drussus), Grace Durkin (Iras), RobertWarwic (Achillas), Charles Morris (Cicero), Harry Beresford (The Soothsayer).
Production started: March 12, 1934. Production finished: May 2, 1934. Length: 9,046 feet (11 reels). Cost $842,908.17. Released: August 16, 1934. Gross: $1,929,161.10.


Program notes written by Robert S. Birchard for a Cecil B. DeMille retrospective at the American Museum of the Moving Image in 1989. ( Birchard's book Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood will be published in June 2004 by the University Press of Kentucky):


After the less than enthusiastic reception accorded Four Frightened People, DeMille turned again to historical spectacle in hopes of repeating the success of The Sign of the Cross. Like the latter, Cleopatra was made on a relatively modest budget considering the scope of the production, but there is a claustrophobic feeling about the film, and many of the settings could have been recreated in the legitimate theater. DeMille concentrated on a few set pieces to give the film a sense of the spectacular, and with scant exceptions this is a practice he would follow in all of his future pictures. For Cleopatra the big moments were the Egyptian queen's entry into Rome, her seduction of Marc Antony on a Nile barge, and a stirring battle montage-which incorporated a great deal of stock footage culled from DeMille's own The Ten Commandments (1923).

Unfortunately, Cleopatra would be Claudette Colbert's last DeMille picture. A tasteful performer who could play both drama and comedy with equal flair, Colbert saw the fun in her roles for DeMille, but she never made fun of them. She also projected a knowledge of human nature without a hint of cynicism, and because this was so much a part of DeMille's own point of view, she has to be considered the director's perfect leading lady.

For DeMille, Cleopatra would have a long-lasting impact, for it was Henry Wilcoxon's first film with the director. DeMille discovered Wilcoxon by watching another director's screen test, and cast him as Marc Antony. Wilcoxon, who would go on to become a trusted friend and advisor, seemed to be DeMille's alter ego, exuding the regal self-confidence that DeMille himself showed in public and longed for in private. He would eventually become DeMille's associate producer.