Rent Cleopatra (1934)
3.5 of 5 from 67 ratings
1h 42min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
A pre-code film that sneaked onto screens just as the censorious Hays Office began cracking down on Hollywood's racier propositions, Cleopatra is a libertine paean to decadence and depravity that can still send a viewer's mind reeling and pulse thumping - all courtesy of the Golden Age's swampiest psychosexual auteur, Cecil B. DeMille. Claudette Colbert presides over the most outrageous spectacle this side of The Scarlet Empress as the eponymous pharaoh queen who speeds from Julius Caesar (Warren William) to Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon), from Egypt to Rome, from war-room to bedroom... The whiff of incense permeates every scene, with each connected to the next in a veritable matrix of whips, blindfolds, and bindings - the crazed arrangement laying bare all the fetish inklings of the moving-picture dream. Lavishly produced with some of the most inspired waxing-moon photography and unwholesome set-design to come out of the studio system, DeMille's film is an erotic tour-de-force that obliges us to re-examine the appeal of this most popular of Hollywood directors. - Actors:
- Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon, Joseph Schildkraut, Ian Keith, Gertrude Michael, C. Aubrey Smith, Irving Pichel, Arthur Hohl, Edwin Maxwell, Ian Maclaren, Eleanor Phelps, Leonard Mudie, Grace Durkin, Ferdinand Gottschalk, Claudia Dell, Harry Beresford, Jayne Regan, William Farnum, Lionel Belmore
- Directors:
- Cecil B. DeMille
- Producers:
- Cecil B. De Mille
- Voiced By:
- John Carradine
- Writers:
- Bartlett Cormack, Waldemar Young, Vincent Lawrence
- Others:
- Anne Bauchens, Victor Milner, Franklin B. Hansen, Cullen Tate
- Studio:
- Eureka
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
- Collections:
- A History of Cricket Films, A History of The Classical World In Cinema, Brando: A Centenary Celebration, Films & TV by topic, Masters of Cinema, Spring On Screen: Films to Watch This Season, A Brief History of Film..., Top 10 Films By Year, Top 10 Films of 1959, Top Films
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 24/09/2012
- Run Time:
- 102 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Audio Commentary by film critic and scholar F.X. Feeney
- 11-minute documentary on director Cecil B. DeMille
- 10-minute documentary on star Claudette Colbert
- 10-minute documentary on the Production Code era
