César y Cleopatra

Shaw was a wonderful historian with a deadly eye for irony. Claude Rains brings off Caesar with withering poise and breezy wit, standing tall above the flashing eye of an Egyptian hurricane named Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh). Caesar's aide-de-camp is an affable bear of a man named Rufio (Basil Sydney), who mainly just keeps his eye on Caesar. Cleopatra is likewise sheltered by her scheming counselor Ftatateeta (Flora Robson), a name that not even Caesar can pronounce. Character actor Cecil Parker as Britannus adds quaintness and serendipity to an already splendid alchemy of spotty characters. The film moves by turns through a narrow skein of classical history as the reliquarian Egyptian world gives way to a streamlined Roman one. Along the way, we witness the contending parties encompassed and entangled in a delightful pantheon of wit, irony, satire, morals, manners, and adventure. Overall, a tremendously facile projection of one of England's sharpest satirical voices, G.B. Shaw.

Cleopatra and Julius Caesar carry on an arch flirtation, while spouting epigrams courtesy of George Bernard Shaw, in this literate, exuberant and thoroughly enjoyable movie. "Caesar and Cleopatra" stands out against the typical British production, which tends to be drab and morose. (Other notable exceptions are the works of Pressberger & Powell, the Korda brothers and Olivier.)

Claude Rains is perfectly cast as the cynical, world-weary and "ready for the knife" Julius Caesar. I'm not sure if it's makeup, or perhaps lighting, but Rains's face looks like it was taken from one of those memorial portraits in the Roman catacombs. In any case, while it may be Caesar's countenance we see, it's Shaw's voice we hear. I love Claude Rains in everything, but there's an intimacy with Rains here that makes "Caesar and Cleopatra" one of my Rains favorites.

And Vivian Leigh. What can I say? Her Cleopatra is Scarlett O'Hara, except that while Scarlett's flirtations were matters of the heart, Cleopatra's were purely matters of state. In the beginning Cleopatra is a sheltered, naive...well, princess. By the end, she has learned well at Caesar's knee and possesses the ruthlessness and guile of statecraft - she is a queen.

Another delight is Stewart Granger's swashbuckling Apollodorus, and Flora Robson has a delicious part as Cleopatra's nursemaid Ftatateeta. Robson is well qualified as a tutor of royalty, having herself played Queen Elizabeth in "Fire over England".

Like another classic British spectacle, "The Four Feathers," "Caesar and Cleopatra" is one of the treasures in my film archive which I view repeatedly alone.

When this film was recently shown on British television I recorded it on the rather naïve assumption that it would be a grand epic of Classical antiquity, something along the lines of the famously expensive Elizabeth Taylor "Cleopatra", still often cited as the costliest film ever made when values are adjusted for inflation. Of course, "Caesar and Cleopatra" is nothing of the sort; the British cinema never really had the budget to copy Hollywood in this respect although some European film-makers, especially in Italy, certainly tried to.

The film was certainly expensive by the standards of 1945; indeed, it was reported to be the most expensive film ever made in Britain at that date, costing well over a million pounds. It is not, however, a Hollywood-style epic but a cinematic adaptation of the play by George Bernard Shaw. While in the Egyptian capital city of Alexandria, Julius Caesar becomes involved in a power-struggle between Queen Cleopatra and the backers of her younger brother (and husband) Ptolemy. In real life Caesar and Cleopatra were lovers, but here their relationship is portrayed not as a romantic or a sexual one. The middle-aged Caesar is shown more as a father-figure to the youthful Cleopatra, a mentor who tutors her in the arts of politics and government. (And, given the intrigue-ridden nature of the Egyptian court, these are certainly areas where she could do with a little tuition).

Towards the end of his long life- this film was made five years before his death- Shaw was a revered figure of English literature, regarded as the nearest thing the twentieth century had produced to a Shakespeare. In more recent years this reputation has faded somewhat, partly because his plays are not always very dramatic. He can be stronger on philosophy and political theory than on action or dramatic tension, and even though his contributions to political and philosophical debates are often expressed in witty and vivid dialogue, the reader (and to an even greater extent the theatre-goer) is sometimes left with the impression that Shaw's linguistic gifts might have been better employed in penning political tracts than in writing for the stage.

Nevertheless, some of Shaw's plays have been turned into very good films, notably the 1938 "Pygmalion" with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, or the 1941 "Major Barbara", also with Hiller and Robert Morley. (One could also include "My Fair Lady" in this list, but that is really second-hand Shaw, a musical based upon "Pygmalion" which owes much of its success to its songs). There have, unfortunately, also been a number of failures, such as "The Millionairess", which relied too heavily on Sophia Loren's glamour and the comic talents of Peter Sellers (which were not too much in evidence) and, although supposedly a comedy, ended up about as funny as a two-hour speech at a TUC conference.

"Caesar and Cleopatra" must also rank among the less successful Shaw adaptations. A lot of its million-pound-plus budget seems to have been spent on its lavish sets- economic and political considerations in 1945 precluded location shooting in Egypt itself- but from a modern perspective they seem like part of the problem, giving the whole production a very artificial, stagey look. It is said that the director Gabriel Pascal ordered sand from Egypt to get the colour right, but when everything else looks so artificial a gesture like that seems like an unnecessary luxury. The stagey impression is strengthened by the dialogue, both in the unnatural way it is spoken and, at times, in the way it is written. (Shaw could sometimes succumb to the delusion that if he was the twentieth-century Shakespeare it was incumbent on him to write in the style of his august predecessor, particularly when dealing with historical subjects).

The best acting performance comes from Claude Rains as Caesar. (I normally think of Rains as a supporting actor in roles like his French police chief in "Casablanca", so it was nice to see him in a leading role for once). This is not the Caesar of history, who was doubtless a lot more ruthless than he is portrayed here, but it is Caesar as Shaw wrote him, an essentially decent man whose undoubted sense of Realpolitik is tempered by his instincts towards humanity and clemency.

Vivien Leigh, however, is well below her best here. She may have been one of Britain's leading actresses of the period, but seems quite wrong for the part. She was 32 at the time, and never seems convincing as Cleopatra, whom Shaw envisaged as a kittenish teenager. A thirty-something Cleopatra would not, I am sure, have required any lessons from Caesar in statecraft.

Of the supporting cast, the best is Francis L. Sullivan as Ptolemy's wily and ambitious tutor Pothinus. The young Stewart Granger seems to have wandered in from another film, possibly one of the swashbuckling historical adventures which were later to become his stock-in-trade. Flora Robson has a thankless task as Cleopatra's nurse Ftatateeta, a character seemingly invented for the sole purpose of raising a laugh every time one of the other characters mispronounces her absurd name. Cecil Parker specialised in playing upper-middle-class English gentlemen and here he plays Caesar's slave Britannus as an upper-middle-class English gentleman transported back in time to Ancient Egypt, something which is never remotely convincing.

The film was described at the time as a "box office stinker"; evidently British audiences in the last year of the Second World War wanted something a bit more entertaining and uplifting than this wordy, overlong disquisition on the nature of political power. Some films which were "stinkers" when they first came out have gone on to become classics, but "Caesar and Cleopatra" seems to have gone in the opposite direction; today it is a little-known, rarely-seen curiosity. 5/10

Up to the time it was released in 1945 Caesar and Cleopatra was the most expensive British film ever made. It was as though the British cinema was trying to show America it could do a DeMille like epic as good as Cecil B. DeMille or anyone else from Hollywood. It may have been a little too overdone. Director Gabriel Pascal might have gotten a bit carried away with the spectacle and the audience might well have missed some of George Bernard Shaw's inspired dialog.

And Pascal had the advantage of the aged Mr. Shaw personally supervising the production. Of course Shaw insisted on total fidelity to his play and the ideas therein. I understand that J. Arthur Rank wanted to have a little sex and romance in there, like DeMille did do, but Shaw would have none of it.

What sets Caesar and Cleopatra apart from other Cleopatra stories that starred Theda Bara, Elizabeth Taylor, and Claudette Colbert is that Shaw portrayed her as probably what she was, a silly teenager who just happens to be Queen of Egypt. There's a little bit of Scarlett O'Hara in Vivien Leigh's performance as she moves from silly teen to a young women well schooled in statecraft by Julius Caesar.

Claude Rains plays a world weary Julius Caesar and the Shavian quips roll off his tongue with great aplomb. Like George Bernard Shaw's other masterpiece Pygmalion, Rains tutors Leigh and the results far exceed what he could have hoped for.

Production on Caesar and Cleopatra was begun while there was still a shooting war in Europe and V-2s and other such explosive devices were still raining down on the United Kingdom. A couple came real close to the studio in London this was being filmed at.

Stewart Granger got his first real notice in this film playing Apollodorus and Francis L. Sullivan plays a blustering and plotting Pothinos. If you look hard among the various slave women you will find both Jean Simmons and Kay Kendall among the extras.

You will also like both Basil Sydney as Ruffio and Cecil Parker as Britanus, two aides to Caesar who both occasionally give him a reality check.

Caesar and Cleopatra failed to recoup the cost of making it in initial release. J. Arthur Rank misjudged the British public taste post World War II. Maybe a little less expense and more attention to Shaw's words and the film might have been better.

Still it's pretty good as is.

Bernard Shaw does not perhaps adapt too well to the screen, but, in my opinion, this adaptation is particularly successful and probably the best of them all, although one video edition in the UK didn't even risk mentioning Shaw's name anywhere on the box, prefering to market it as mere exotic spectacle. It is of course all that, but as with everything Shaw wrote, much, much more, and is essentially about IDEAS, (not necessarily, as has often been contended, always Shaw's own personal convictions). Vivien Leigh as Cleopatra gives yet another sublime and first-rate performance as she progresses from frightened teenager to an imperious Queen with a real understanding of power. (The scene in which she whips a hapless slave in order to experience the "thrill" of total power, strangely pre-echoes the psychology of the much misunderstood SALO). Mention too must also be made of the superb musical score by Georges Auric, and admiration expressed for the sheer audacity of producer Pascal for making such a lavish and expensive production in poverty-stricken post-war Britain. Well worth watching.