Cleopatra's Daughter

Meanwhile back at the sarcophagus, Italian filmmakers go to great lengths to create an effectively atmospheric Peplum set during the time of the Ancient Egyptian empires. Or there abouts, depends on which language version you encounter. The sets are elegant, the costumes right out of a high school textbook and the film delivers the goods if you like talky period-type drama mixed in with your Swords & Sandals. Lots of intrigue involving royal courts, family lineage, duplicitous religious leaders, and Debra Paget decked out in a Pharaonic babe-getup that is very easy on the eyes. She can lounge around eating grapes over at my place anytime and the dialog is surprisingly fluid for Italian translated to English.

All of which is routine. The film will stand out in my mind as the one where the threat of having one's tongue cut out is repeated sufficient times to prove curious. The first time was cool. The second time was odd. The third time had me wondering if the dubbing was on right, and the fourth time made me laugh. Maybe there's a drinking game to be had here. Nothing else about the film's story made much of an impression though I do not regret the time invested (wasted?), no, consumed by watching it. A mummy subplot could have been cool, or maybe more slave chicks. At least a giant cyclops or something, Guys.

Which is perhaps why having a female lead with a respectable pedigree in such a production will ultimately work against the film's appeal beyond the boundaries of genre viewers. Since Ms. Paget is the intended focus of our ardor the fate of random half naked slave chicks hurled to their doom for the entertainment of some slavering despot becomes less pressing to the needs of the plot, and sadly the filmmakers took the easy way out. Court intrigue or giant a cyclops devouring centurions? If choosing the former, bingo.

This is supposed to be the story of Cleopatra's daughter Shila, as she's called in this movie. The problem is that Cleopatra's real daughter Selene II lived between the years of 49- 6 BC. Her supposedly husband Nemorat/Khufu, as he's called if you look at the IMDb or the Wikipedia cast listings, lived between the years of 2589 and 2566 BC. This movie is supposed to be set during the reign of Khufu so somebody, somewhere, obviously made a mistake somehow or perhaps they chose Khufu because it was a royal name. The other problem there is that there was only one King Khufu ever listed. From a viewing point of view the only good thing about this movie was Debra Paget, the beautiful American actress who played Shila. On the other hand, the hypochondriac, idiotic Pharoah Nemorat/Khufu, who's mother told him women were dirty, and was forever complaining about bees and wasps getting into his ears to eat his brain, that's if they could find it, was beyond a joke. If Khufu was supposed to be the "real pharoah", you're talking about the same guy who commissioned the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven wonders of the world, which actually still stands in Egypt today. I'll give Peplum Studios something though, for an early movie of theirs, at least they chose to be in Egypt for a change. At the end of the movie, as Resi (Ettore Mani), and Slila (Debra Paget) ride off into the sunset, you're wondering, (from a historical point of view), what the he** the movie was all about. bcarruthers-76500

The film talks about Keops , alias Nemorat . Keops was the second pharaoh of four dynasty from ancient Egyptian empire , and he made the great pyramid of Gyze that bears his name . He is succeeded by Kefren who built the sphinx Gyze and the pyramid of the same name . After goes on pharaoh Micerinos. Three pharaohs have pyramids on Gyze : Keops, Kefren and Micerinos.

The movie centers upon scheming Kefren ( Erno Crisa ) and his dark schemes to inherit Egyptian empire . Nemorat ( Conrado Pani )is poisoned , and his wife ( Debra Paget ) is doomed to die with him into the pyramid . Her lover ( Ettore Manni ) designs a plot to free her by means of a potion. Before he will have to face a lot of dangers and risks until obtain his objective . The film blends drama , adventures , love and hokey historical events . Direction by Fernando Cerchio is professionally made , he directed many ¨ sword and sandals¨ and epic films . Cinematography is well realized and Giovanni Fusco's musical score is good . Set design and Egyptian time production design are spectacular . Debra Paget is wonderful , support cast is nice , there are American actors as Robert Alda ,though mostly are Italian players as Andrea Bosic , Rosalba Neri..among others . Rating: 5,5/10 average but entertaining .

After her role as Lilia opposite John Derek in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, roles started getting scarce on the big screen for Debra Paget who as I write this review is the last living of the major players left from that classic. Look at her credits, she did a lot of television after that and like so many of her contemporaries, mostly male though, went to Italy for big screen sand and sandal epics. But Cleopatra's Daughter is in no way like the Elizabeth Taylor classic that came out three years later.

For if you remember in that fairly historically accurate film, Cleopatra had no daughter with Julius Caesar or anyone else. She had a son who disappeared after her overthrow, but no daughter. Assyria as a kingdom was no more by Cleopatra's time and there were no more Pharoahs ruling Egypt. Other than all this, Cleopatra's Daughter is a film of great veracity, NOT.

Cleo's kid played by Paget goes to live with the Assyrian royal house who bring her up like their own, but now the new ruling house of Egypt, presumably the one left there by Augustus has conquered Assyria and to cement their usurping dynasty, the Queen Mother who really runs things wants Debra to marry her idiot Pharoah son who is a real Mama's boy.

Paget's got eyes for the royal physician Ettore Manni, but there's folks with designs on the throne. She's implicated in the poisoning of the Pharoah and sentenced to be put to death and buried in the great tomb of Cheops which he has constructed (another historical anomaly). Manni in a bit lifted from Romeo and Juliet gives Paget a potion that will fake death and his task is to get her out of the tomb once it's sealed up. Breaking in isn't easy and Manni gets some grave robbing professionals to help him do it.

If you think this is all ridiculous enough, it gets even worse, but I won't reveal any more. I think that most Hollywood performers who went to Italy to revive their sagging careers did their worst work there. Only Clint Eastwood made a career from spaghetti westerns, no one did it from gladiator films.

All that was needed was for June Allyson to come on doing a chorus of the Cleopatterer song that she did in Till The Clouds Roll By.

After Julius Caesar's death, Marc Antony and Cleopatra met in Assyria for political purposes. While there, Cleopatra left her daughter Shila with the Assyrians rulers. Shila was raised by and as one of the Assyrian royals. In the years following the death of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Egypt is in turmoil from their evil and mentally ill Pharaoh Nemorat. Nemorat's Queen Mother, Tegi, wanted her son Pharaoh Nemorat and the Princess Shila to marry in order to unite Egypt and Assyria. Shila rejected Nemorat and he took some poison then died. Now the Queen Mother Tegi has Shila imprisoned for the death of her son. The royal physician, Resi, is in love with Shila and wants to help her. Tegi's younger son, Kefren, is now next in line for the throne. Now Resi and Shila must risk all for their love of one another. Resi has a plan to get the Princess Shila out of prison before she is put to death by order of the Egyptian Queen Mother Tegi.

This is a fairly good "B" historical drama. It's not great but it did hold my interest fairly well, I was surprised by how pleasant it was. The first half of the film I did find boring but it picked up about 1/2 through it.

4.5/10