Serpent of the Nile

This is really a poor man's "Cleopatra" but there are lessons in politics in it: The imaginary Lucilius character shows that opportunism does pay:changing sides every ten minutes leads him to a glorious happy end,brother in arms with Octavius, whereas Cleopatra and Mark Antony commit suicide (which anyone past infancy already knew).

If terrorism does not pay (the murder attempt) ,at least we learn that Cleopatra's people are starving ,and that gives Lucilius a good reason to rebel against this tyranny (and to ease his conscience)for very little:he knows (and so do we) that in Rome,everyone lives in the lap of luxury!

In fact,Mark Antony nursed a viper in his bosom ,and it was not the queen of Egypt.

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.

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.

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.

Now I know my medication is making me hallucinate!!

I'd swear I just saw a Technicolor movie with William Castle's name on it as director that begins with Raymond Burr as Mark Antony declaiming Shakespeare, Rhonda Fleming in the title role wearing green eye shadow and Jean Louis, and Julie Newmar dancing in nothing but a bikini and gold paint!