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Antony and Cleopatra

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5.6/10 • 21

1972-03-182h 18m

DramaHistory

Adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, a historical drama that attempts to bring an epic visual style to the Bard's original stage play. The story concerns Marc Antony's attempts to rule Rome while maintaining a relationship with the queen of Egypt (Hildegarde Neil), which began while Antony was still married. Now he is being forced to marry the sister of his Roman co-leader, and soon the conflict leads to war.

Directors
Charlton Heston
Editors
Eric Boyd-Perkins

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Charlton Heston

    Charlton Heston

    Marc Antony

  2. Hildegard Neil

    Hildegard Neil

    Cleopatra

  3. Eric Porter

    Eric Porter

    Enobarbus

  4. John Castle

    John Castle

    Octavius Caesar

  5. Fernando Rey

    Fernando Rey

    Lepidus

  6. Juan Luis Galiardo

    Juan Luis Galiardo

    Alexis

  7. Carmen Sevilla

    Carmen Sevilla

    Octavia

  8. Freddie Jones

    Freddie Jones

    Pompey

  9. Peter Arne

    Peter Arne

    Menas

Reviews1

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CinemaSerf Avatar

CinemaSerf

Dec 9, 2023

6/10

Whilst this is a really quite good looking version of the Shakespeare tragedy, it's the overly wordy adaptation that drags it down. What director Charlton Heston and his writing team seem to failed to appreciate is that much of the original text was designed to complement the simplicity of the stage. With an whole gamut of visuals for us to enjoy, much of the original dialogue is rendered superfluous, and abridging that is the challenge that fails this production. Essentially, it picks up just after the assassination of Julius Caesar with Lepidus (Fernando Rey), Octavian (John Castle) and Marc Antony (Heston) managing an easy truce so they can deal with Pompey (Freddie Jones). Octavian is also nervous about Antony and so suggests that he marry his sister Octavia to create a stronger bond between them and also to irritate the other player in this game. Cleopatra (Hildegard Neil) has also moved on from Julius and Antony is very much in her grip. Now he has some egg shells to tread upon as she reacts to his new nuptials and he realises that maybe together than are strong enough to redraw the map of the Roman world. It doesn't really try very hard to present us with grand scale battle scenes, but instead uses some quick-cut editing to illustrate conflict interspersed with dialogue and the odd action shot. At times that's quite effective, but most of this film just looked like a vanity project for a star very much engaged with the original work but without really much idea as to how best to deliver it engagingly on the screen. His casting of Neil is a bit hit and miss, and his own tendency to lingering shots to camera rather slow this to a snails pace. Castle does well as the softly softly Octavian as does Eric Porter as Enobarbus, but otherwise this is all just a bit long and unremarkable.

Media

  • Antony and Cleopatra poster
  • Antony and Cleopatra poster
  • Antony and Cleopatra poster
  • Antony and Cleopatra poster
  • Antony and Cleopatra poster

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
$1,600,000.00
Revenue
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Keywords
cleopatraancient rome1st century