Le serpent du Nil

Hollywood's love affair with Cleopatra is as strong as the ones she had with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony - and just as doomed.

As for "Serpent of the Nile", maybe only lovers of bad movies could sit through it today, and for them there is much to enjoy. However it's fascinating to see a star like Raymond Burr before he became famous on television.

"Serpent of the Nile" starts with the death of Caesar, which allows Mark Antony (Raymond Burr) to follow his destiny to Egypt and Cleopatra. Fair-skinned Rhonda Fleming is a glamorous Cleopatra, although the makeup department didn't even bother to remove the cap off the bronzing cream in the pursuit of ethnic authenticity.

Along the way, Antony spares the life of Lucilius (William Lundigan), a Roman officer who becomes a friend. However, Lucilius has had history with Cleopatra and has the inside running although she does take up with Mark Antony. Eventually Antony loses his grip, giving himself over to pleasure.

After a falling out of buddies, Lucilius joins Antony's rival, Octavian, who arrives to stop the nonsense in Egypt. Finally, Antony falls on his sword while Cleopatra heads for the basket with the asp.

"Serpent" is flat looking and stagy. That's probably because much of the film looks as though it was shot in director William Castle's office where they just pushed the furniture aside and hung a curtain on the wall - the film uses a lot of curtains.

The film opens out in a few scenes, and does come to life in the big dance number. The movie doesn't seem to have taxed the research department too much except where they apparently discovered that the Ancient Egyptians were partial to scantly-clad dancing girls. In fact researchers on all Cleopatra pictures come to the same conclusion, although I can't remember ever seeing hieroglyphics that depicted things quite that way.

The dance sequence in "Serpent" seems to owe more to Las Vegas than Luxor and is a bit of an eye-opener, especially for a 1953 movie. Julie Newmar cut loose clad in gold paint and not much else - the rest of the movie has a hard time matching a performance like that.

The audacity of the whole thing is reason enough to give the film a viewing. Although it's not a send-up, in some ways it could give "Carry on Cleo" a run for its money.

The thing is this movie overcomes it's problems and is a worthwhile version of this story. It gets off on a bad foot right away with a bad action scene, not just cheap, it's bad. All but one scene of historical battling are really poorly staged. If you can only afford to have ten guys fighting you'd hope that at least the fighting would be good but no. These scenes are at times inept and Castle, though cheap by choice and or by circumstance was rarely an inept director. But the script knows to keep these scenes to a minimum and Burr and Fleming are frankly pretty good, especially Burr who quickly makes you forget his Perry Mason persona. There is a fun and campy girl painted gold dance scene which also features gals dressed as Roman's with whips. This is probably the high low light of the film and you don't see it coming. After this scene the movie constantly becomes better. I stopped hoping for a campy disaster of a film and found an actual film here, hampered by the afore mentioned lapses.

This is a different take on this story. The movie begins with Caesar dead on the floor and the story then focuses on Celopatra's political reason for pretending to love men and Anthony's friend trying to stop him from throwing it all away. Anthony is called a man who knows only war and pleasure and he's just tired enough of war to let pleasure overcome him. And all this is handled well by the writing and the performances. Admitting that Lundigen is miscast and doesn't look Roman, you get over this as he and Burr's chemistry as friends and rivals works well.

Besides, there is a scene with guys wrestling a real Bear, not a guy in a suit!! And there is one mostly good action scene involving some daringly placed cameras under the hooves of charging horses and chariots. You get used to the cheap sets and bad matte paintings and get over the usually poor action scenes as the story and characters hold together and gain interest. And there are a lot of costumes for a cheap film.

The stock music score is well put together and it all ends with a rather nice slow dissolve. Castle proves that if he can't be embraced totally he cannot be shunned or dismissed either. Credit to a good script and lead performances and to Wild Bill Castle for keeping it moving and colorful--something he always did.

I wasn't expecting much from this cheapie version of the well-known Anthony and Cleopatra tale, but it is interesting for several different reasons. I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but if you in the mood, this will pass your time.

First, this is an extremely low budget effort. That actually is a plus to me, because the high budget versions tend to lose focus, replacing wit with artifice. The characters wear the standard Roman army Halloween costumes, and everybody who isn't going to be around for a while is played by someone you almost certainly won't recognize. The painted backdrops are a hoot. Raymond Burr, who really hadn't made his name yet, manages to impress as a drunken, weak-willed Antony, while Rhonda Fleming as Cleopatra is stunning and manages to toss in a goblet-throwing temper tantrum here and there.

Second, the camp value of this version is way out there. Fleming plays Cleopatra as a scheming tart with totally unrealistic expectations for her lovers who entertains them with whip-wielding women dressed as Roman soldiers. William Lundigan plays her surprise love interest, Antony's associate who apparently had an affair with her years before as one of Caesar's guards. He grimaces through the film, looking for all the world as if he's looking for a horse to ride off into a Gene Autry film. Nobody looks particularly Egyptian, and Burr sounds more like Perry Mason than a Roman General. It's never really made clear why he went to Egypt in the first place, except that he "likes to have Cleopatra around" while Octavian takes over where the real action is, back in, um, Rome. Michael Ansara is around as Cleopatra's somewhat bumbling heavy to add to the low-rent feel.

Third, if the story interests you, it's refreshing to see a different take on it without all the overblown pageantry and histrionics that mar pretty much all the other versions. They were just people like everyone else, and this flick's perverse achievement is that it indeed makes everyone look pretty ordinary.

As I said, don't go out of your way to see this one. It's bad history done, well, badly. But Fleming is attractive and wears her tight, provocative low-cut '50's numbers well, and the romantic triangle allows her to emote all over the bare-bones scenery. See it only if that would amuse you.

Low budget trashy version of the famous Queen of Egypt and Roman lovers, as her lust for Marc Anthony after Caesar's death . Set 44 BC later Julius Caesar's murder by Brutus and Casius , governing the second triumvirate formed by Lepido who runs Africa, Octavius Augustus ruling over Hispania and Marc Anthony over Egypt and Orient. Then the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra : Rhonda Fleming , wants to rule Egypt by defeating her brother Ptolomeo and sister Arsinoe but she needs the power of Rome to make things happen , as well as continue the sucession on her child Cesarion, the out-of-wedlock son of Cleopatra and Caesar . When Caesar's possible successor Marc Anthony : Raymond Burr , comes to Egypt along with his army commandant and one of the highest ranking Roman general called Licinius : William Lundigan, she seduces the conqueror but also his general in order to gain the kingdom again , but things do not turn out as well. As there starts a tragic love story with fateful consequences .

This known history about the famous Queen , the popular Egypt temptress's who pins her hopes on rash Marc Anthony results to be an extravaganza in short budget financed by producer Sam Katzsman , an expert in making quickies. It is a multi-colored sleeping tablet with historical characters giving plain and simple recreation . It contains abundant matte painting , carton/stone settings , well-staged battles, some opulent grotesque interiors and a few actors hopelessly wooden. Passable trio starring : Raymond Bur, William Lundigan and Rhonda Fleming who also performed another historic role : Semiramis. They are accompanied by an acceptable support cast such as : Michael Andara as captain Florus, Michael Fox as Octavius Augustus and Julie Newmar as the gilged girl carrying out some erotic dances. This underdone epic was regular but professionally directed by William Castle.

Others films concerning this historic figure Cleopatra are as follows : Silent version starred by Theda Bara. Cleopatra 1934 by Cecil B. DeMille with Claudette Colbert, Henry Wilconson, Warren William, C Aubrey Smith. Two nights with Cleopatra 1954 by Mario Mattioli with Sofia Loren, Alberto Sordi, Paul Muller. Cleopatra's legion 1959 by Vittorio Cottafavi with Linda Cristal, Ettore Manni, Georges Marchal, Conrado San Martin. A Queen for Caesar 1962 by Piero Pierotti with Pascale Petit, George Ardisson, Akin Tamiroff, Gordon Scott, Corrado Pani .Cleopatra 1963 by Joseph L Mankiewicz with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Hume Cronyn, Andrew Keir. Cleopatra miniseries 1999 by Franc Roddan with Leonor Varela, Timothy Dalton, Billy Zane, Rupert Graves.

They actually try to do their best out of a bad script. The problem is that everyone is miscast, without a single exception, or perhaps with Jean Byron as Charmian for the only exception. The actress playing Arsinoë could also be an exception, but no one still knows who that actress was, but the part is perhaps the only interesting one in the film. None of the others, without exception, is convincing. Rhonda Fleming is not bad, but her script is impossible. John Lundigan as Lucilius is laughable as a head to foot yankee. The less said about Raymond Burr as Antony, the better, while he at least makes an effort to be convincing as a drunk. There have been a lot of miserable screenings of this great romance of the antiquities, they have all failed, but this must be (at least one of) the worst. Even the music is a disaster. Sorry, no one ever seems to get this story right, while Shakespeare got close enough, but no one will ever understand Cleopatra the woman, if Elizabeth Taylor though after all was the best one. "Did anyone ever conquer a woman?" Lucilius asks in the beginning, he never gets an answer, but the Cleopatra case seems to forever confirm the answer as no.