Writers: William Shakespeare, Charlton Heston
Composer: John Scott
Starring: Charlton Heston, Hildegard Neil, Eric Porter, John Castle, Fernando Rey, Juan Luis Galiardo, Carmen Sevilla, Freddie Jones, Peter Arne, Luis Barboo, Fernando Bilbao, Warren Clarke, Roger Delgado, Julian Glover
More info: IMDb
Tagline: For the first time...Shakespeare's tragic love story is brought to the screen
Plot: After the murder of her lover Caesar, Egypt's queen Cleopatra needs a new ally. She seduces his probable successor Mark Antony. This develops into real love and slowly leads to a war with the other possible successor: Octavius.
My rating: 4/10
Will I watch it again? No.
In a word, it's dull. I love Heston but this was a tough slog. It's admirable that he made this happen and he must have really felt some connection with Marc Antony as this was his third time playing him. What got to me was the slow pacing, dialogue (which would probably be easier to follow and get into if only the movie had some life to it) and the lead actors acting like they had the world's troubles on their shoulders. They really oversold the drama. There's a battle near the end that injected a little interest and potential excitement except that, and I'm sure this was entirely a budgetary problem, it was done on a small scale with medium shots and no long shots to give any type of scale. I expected more. The widescreen print I watched (non-anamorphic) was nice but that wasn't enough to mask the drearyness of this production.
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