Serpent of the Nile

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.

It's difficult to take this movie seriously, indeed if nothing else it will make you smile it's so campy. Cheap painted scenery, the same waves in all the sea scenes (notice the painted ships don't move), moronic character motivations, and I could go on. Its definitely history on the cheap as only William Castle could imagine it. Don't expect any resemblance to facts other than on the barest surface and even then it's a stretch. But it is FUN. Everyone acts like a 30s Chicago gangster except they wear Roman armor and togas. Rhonda Fleming is absolutely delightful in her over-the-top portrayal of the legendary queen, her form deliciously outlined in all her costumes. She is perfect in this role, the queen of camp playing the queen of the Nile. Raymond Burr's portrayal of Anthony makes you wonder how such a dope could have risen to such a height of power. As for William Lundigan, well he switched allegiances effortlessly, from Caesar to Brutus to Anthony to Cleopatra back to Anthony to Octavius and then I lost track. As for the plot don't expect to make much sense of it. So be warned and beware that you might not be able to take your eyes off this train wreck of a film.

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.

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.