Customer Reviews

Antony and Cleopatra

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Charlton Heston's production is an excellent adaptation. It is not a filmed play, but a movie. Every character, from the leads to the most minor, is well played. As director, even working on a shoestring budget, Heston managed to get in the spectacular action that a stage production can only suggest. As lead actor, he presented an Antony whose strength and weakness made him very human.

Some of Shakespeare's lines were cut, some moved around, and some "translated" into more modern English, i.e. "wanton" for "riggish". Offended purists should remember that Shakespeare was a working playwright,turning out scripts that put groundling feet on the ground and aristocratic rears on seats. Because he was a poetic genius, what he wrote turned out to be great literature, but it is better performed than read.

Heston's movie never went into general theatrical release in this country because the critics killed it. They were wrong.

This is one of those films that should have been greater that it was. And now happened that Warner Video cut an entire scene out of this edition, specifically the part when Mark Antony has to return to Rome and has to find the words and courage to leave Cleopatra, who tries to get him to stay in Egypt. This is a terrible deed! I cannot believe that they cut a movie secquence just to make space for the documentary feature by Fraser Heston (?) especially since this is a dual layer disc, while the VHS edition featured the complete, uncut movie.
Even Mr. Charlton Heston would have objected to that. I would have appreciated to know this before buying this DVD, but now you know it. Therefore I took one star off the rating.

Besides this, the DVD features no Scene Selection on the menu, and subtittles are limited to English and French. Therefore I took a second star off the rating.

Now the positive points are that the DVD transfer is crisp and trufhful, well made. The movie plays smoothly and beautifully and the audio is definitely better that in the VHS edition.

Charlton Heston directed and starred in this production of Shakespeare's *Antony and Cleopatra*. Filmed in England in 1972, it seems to have been influenced by Franco Zefferelli's 1968 version of *Romeo and Juliet* in which nudity was introduced into film adaptations of the bard's plays.

English teachers who may wish to show this movie in class should preview the film and make their own decisions about whether to employ the famous "hold-a-folder-in-front-of-the-screen" technique as Heston did find a way to introduce a bit of skin, creating a scene on Cleopatra's barge where her ladies-in-waiting go in for some eye-popping sunbathing in front of the eunuch who protects them.

J. Arthur Rank (1888-1972), the British founder of the Rank Group, PLC, which made the movie, got into the filmmaking industry in the 1930s in an effort to bring family-friendly films to the British filmgoing audience to counter-balance what he considered the risque direction American films were taking. Knowing that, one wonders if the sincere Methodist, who would have been 84 and in the last days of his life when this film was in production, would have jumped so blithely onto the Zefferelli bandwagon had he still had a hand in what his company was doing.

Still, the delivery of the Shakespearean dialogue is masterful, which is an important consideration for the literature classroom. My main disappointment was that Heston's Antony seemed wooden and hardly the slobbering fool that "piece of work," Cleopatra, led around by the nose. Thus, Heston lost a key element in Shakespeare's history plays: how human folly can bring down even the greatest of the world's powers.

Since this movie was made in England, it is hard to find in a VHS format that will play in Region 1. It has not yet been released in DVD format, and since Charlton Heston himself considered this film a flop, it may be a long time before someone takes the risk of doing so. Bottom line: snap up a VHS copy and make your own decisions about classroom use.

First I must set the record straight: this is not the uncut version. On the cover of the DVD it is written 148 minutes, but the original was 2 hours and 42 minutes long - that is what Heston said on television then in 1972 in Japan. So, about 14 minutes short. Missing are as follows as far as I can remember clearly (I saw it 5 times then, being a great Heston fan):

Act I, sc i: Cleopatra's lines from "Nay, hear them, Antony" to "The messengers!" The perceptive viewers must have noticed that Antony was suddenly wearing a pearl necklace when he says "Let Rome in Tiber melt, ..." which was not there seconds earlier. It was wound by Cleopatra while speaking those lines.
Act I, sc iii, the leave-taking scene with Cleopatra (quite a big chunk)
Act I, sc v, Alexas's appearance "Sovereign of Egypt, hail!" etc.
Prelude to part 2 (I never heard this, but it is on the soundtrack album: 1 min 31 sec.)
Whoever was responsible for that, one must have thought nobody would notice but there are some still around who saw the film when the it was first released and even remember it well.

14 minutes may not sound much but the cut is devastating for the Cleopatra character, making her utterly uninteresting, particularly at her first appearance, and it makes the first one-thirds of the film so dull. One wonders why Antony didn't stick with Octavia and retain half the Roman world. Poor Hildegarde Neil whose better scenes were so callously cut! Surely it would take a greater actress than Neil to play this part convincingly. Heston himself was not terribly happy with her even while shooting but she was the "best girl available" to him (or affordable, perhaps). However, even though "the critics' wrath" was "concentrated on her", he did not think she was so bad. (From his journals, "Actor's life" 1978.)

Of course I've read all the plays of Shakespeare at least two times and some many times over including this one. The problem with me is that I don't much like it - particularly the portrayal of Cleopatra. I cannot imagine her to be the queen of one of the richest country of the ancient world, but merely a crafty woman in the art of love, and in the end what induced her to die was more the prospect of shame than the bereavement by Antony. Surely one cannot blame her or Shakespeare for that. Besides, the art of love was what she exercised as statecraft since the time with Julius Caesar. However, this is no place to discuss that. To be honest I prefer Mankiewicz's Cleopatra to Shakespeare's!

I thought this film would never come out on DVD, but it did after a long wait: 39 years since when I saw it in the local cinema. What a shame that it came out in such a poor presentation! The cut is unpardonable and but more disappointing is the sound: so much tape noise as one seldom hears on DVDs, certainly never from major studios. My ancient soundtrack album sounds much better, and in stereo as well.
Otherwise the film is better than I remembered. I was rather surprised that those lines could be spoken naturally. I thought then that Heston overplayed a bit, but now I see that he rather underplayed. The problem at least for me is that he is hardly convincing as Antony the Drunkard and Antony the Debauchee, although normally credible as a leader of men; in this case a blundering general finally deserted by his men. I leave the praise for the supporting players like Eric Porter, John Castle, etc. to other reviewers. It is ironic and sad that this should be released on the same day as the latest edition of The Ten Commandments that has received the maximum treatment. I would have gladly waited more for a better really uncut one in Blu-ray.

I would give 4 stars to this film were it not for the unpardonable cut.

i've always been curious about this film, not on account of charlton heston, but for john castle, one of those actors who seem unable to give a poor performance and of whom i've been an admirer since the 1970's. and he's terrific here, really young and with dyed blonde hair, but still and quiet and commanding as always. it's an ambitious film and you must give heston credit for making a very earnest attempt at telling the story, and he's not at all bad as antony, quite imposing really---i recently saw "the fall of the roman empire" which was intended for him and sophia loren, but he passed on it, and he is really what's missing from that excellant film, a great big star at it's center. too bad he didn't have it's budget for "antony and cleopatra". and a word too about the great eric porter (who was also in "fall of the roman empire", now i come to think about it!) what a pleasure to be in the hands of so skilled an actor, never a false moment, so commanding even when he isn't speaking, when he's holding heston's helmet and just listening. he and john castle make this film worth owning.

This restoration is Fraser Heston's homage to his father.

In his autobiography, "In the Arena", Charlton Heston tells how, at the end of filming "Ben-Hur", the director, William Wyler, said: "Well Chuck, I guess that just about wraps the picture. Next time I'll try to get you a better part." But there was no better part. From "El Cid" to "Earthquake" it was downhill all the way. Interspersed with these subsequent movies the film star returned to the stage for short-run, much less financially rewarding but more personally satisfying, theatre productions. "Antony and Cleopatra" shows Charlton Heston as he imagined himself as a great Shakespearian actor.

Apparently, in order to attract financing, the film had to have something of an "epic" quality about it. This was done by using film clips from "Ben-Hur" and "Cleopatra".

The sea-battle at Actium intercuts images from "Ben-Hur" (where Quintus Arrius attacks the Macedonian pirates); "Cleopatra" (for its Battle of Actium); and a studio mock-up (in order to put Charlton Heston in the frame). The contrast between "Ben-Hur"'s model ships filmed in a studio tank with a stormy sky and "Cleopatra"'s lumbering hulks filmed off Ischia under a clear summer sky is most jarring.

The final land battle intercuts images from "Cleopatra" and second unit photography by Joe Canutt filmed on the beaches at Almería in Spain. The second unit extras are costumed in some sort of proto-Saracen gear. (Perhaps Hollywood's idea of how 30 BC Egyptians might have dressed.)

There are a couple of locational shots with ships at sea in the background which must be some of the worst matte filming ever produced.

The shots of Cleopatra's palace (both exterior and interior) are no match for those seen in "Cleopatra" or even those of many a sword and sandal epic. Cleopatra's tomb is a little cardboard-like pyramid sitting in the desert (of Almería) with its avenue of sphinxes. (There are no other pyramids in this film.)

The film negative was shot in Todd-AO 35. The DVD is presented in the film's original 2.35:1 film aspect (with black strips above and below). The transfer of the studio shots to DVD is excellent (but less so the film clips). The close-ups are clear enough to show that most of the actors were in need of some orthodontic work.

All of the actors, apparently at Heston's insistence, were Shakespearean trained theatre actors. In his autobiography Heston recalled a fellow actor commenting that in order to do a great "Antony and Cleopatra" you've got to have a really great Cleopatra. Heston did not heap praises on Hildegarde Neil's performance.

All-in-all the film would have been much better if there had been more Shakespearian dialogue and fewer action scenes.

Barely seen since it opened in 1972, Charlton Heston's Antony and Cleopatra is one of the handsomest and most vividly cinematic Shakespeare adaptations - this is first and foremost a film, and one whose epic scale often belies its surprisingly modest budget with judicious use of leftover sets from 50s and 60s epics, some well chosen Spanish locations, a bit of stock footage from Fox's Cleopatra and an impressive supporting cast. If anything the supporting cast are almost too impressive, often showing up actor-director Heston's weaknesses with the Bard's verse. While his co-stars generally favor a more naturalistic style, at times Heston goes for the kind of declamatory style that values the sound of the words rather than the meaning, a common pitfall with Shakespeare films. In his favor, Heston has the epic stature and presence to convince as a superstar of the ancient world whose fool for love act is revealing feet of clay that at first dismays and then sets his fans against him with fatal consequences, and his performance improves as he uses it against himself to expose the character's increasingly obvious flaws.

A labor of love for Heston (who apparently included use of stock footage from Cleopatra in his deal to make Beneath the Planet of the Apes), there's some real imagination in the staging - he sets Antony and Octavian's first meeting against a gladiatorial combat, while the aftermath of the battle of Actium is played out amid the wreckage on the beach - and great visuals - Heston really understands the scale of the story and the value of real locations as well as the occasional need for the kind of movement and energy that's so often missing from Shakespeare films. Not everything works (there's some flashcut inserts in a couple of scenes that are probably better as ideas than in execution), and it does tend to drag a bit in the last third, but then so does the play, yet there's more than enough here to mark Heston out as a more intelligent and imaginative director than he was ever given credit for.

It's also surprisingly well cast. Despite attracting much critical derision, Hildegard Neil is a convincingly mercurial Cleopatra, John Castle makes his Octavian equally disappointed and ruthless and there's strong support from Julian Glover, Douglas Wilmer, Jane Lapotoire, Peter Arne, Roger Delgado, John Hallam, Joe Melia and Fernando Rey (surprisingly well dubbed by Richard Johnson, who also dubs Aldo Sambrell and Juan Luis Galiardo). Even serial overactor Freddie Jones is kept under control for once as Pompey. But the film's outstanding performance is easily Eric Porter's Enobarbus, easily the finest Shakespeare performance I've ever seen on screen, managing at once to bring the verse to life without ever losing sight of the human being beneath it: his rapturous ode to "the barge she sat in" paints a far more spectacular and magical picture in the mind than anything in Joseph Mankiewicz's 1963 epic (though some of the footage from the Battle of Actium does turn up in the battle scenes). Equally worthy of star billing is John Scott's remarkable score, one of the best and most sadly overlooked of the 70s, and a thing of real beauty in its own way too. Given a rough ride by critics in its day and now extremely hard to find (before Warner's uncut release there was only a cut Spanish DVD, an even worse German one and a surprisingly good uncut - minus the overture - widescreen transfer that was given away with a Greek newspaper and which could be found on ebay), it's well worth a look.

William Shakespeare's tale of the intense and tragic romance of Antony and Cleopatra with its historical, panoramic background would seem ideal for cinema. And indeed, director and star Charlton Heston (who had played Antony two years earlier in an unsuccessful film adaptation of JULIUS CAESAR) has created a rich looking film that belies its modest budget. More importantly, it is not a static "Old Vic" reproduction but a vibrant cinematic experience that still manages to retain its Shakespearean authority. Heston concocts all kinds of clever visual conceits, like Proculeius' (Julian Glover) entry into Cleopatra's monument, that were not in Shakespeare's text but add a cinematic touch to the proceedings. The film's modest budget precludes any detailed battle scenes which seem quickly telegraphed but other than that, one doesn't feel cheated. While Heston makes for a commanding and robust Antony, the film suffers somewhat from the anemic Cleopatra of Hildegard Neil (A TOUCH OF CLASS) while the actress who could have made an imposing Cleopatra, Jane Lapotaire, plays the handmaiden Charmian. There's a sumptuous score by John Scott that positively shimmers and the accomplished cinematography by Rafael Pacheco . With Fernando Rey, John Castle, Freddie Jones, Carmen Sevilla and Eric Porter.

The Warners DVD is a nicely rendered anamorphic wide screen (2.35) transfer. The audio could have been punched up a bit though as John Scott's lovely score often seems muted.

OFFICIALLY 3.5 STARS. This is another one of those titles that I missed the first time around and that I have waited for years to see. Now that I have finally caught up with it, I'm glad I did. There are no other theatrical releases (as opposed to made for TV versions) of ANTONY & CLEOPATRA out there so it's fortunate that this one is as good as it is. It is not the ideal version by any means but until someone else decides to tackle A & C on the big screen, this one will more than suffice. Charlton Heston began his career by making film versions of classic plays (PEER GYNT, JULIUS CAESAR) in his pre-Hollywood days and had played Marc Antony on two previous occasions so it comes as no surprise that he can handle the Shakespearean dialogue with no trouble. The only problem from my perspective is that while he is imposing enough, he just looks too old for the role. The same can be said for Hildegard Neil's Cleopatra. Neil is best known for her stage and Brit TV work and for being in the Glenda Jackson-George Segal vehicle A TOUCH OF CLASS. Both actors seem a little jarring at first but you get used to them and by the end you realize that they have given performances of substance.

The real strength of the production lies in the supporting cast of British actors, many of them members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Julian Glover, John Castle, Douglas Wilmer, Peter Arne, and Freddie Jones are familiar faces and voices who add interest and lustre to their roles. The absolute standouts are Eric Porter as Enobarbus who gives recites his dialogue as if it were an intimate conversation which really allows his words to sink in and Jane Lapotaire as Cleopatra's maidservant Charmian who brings grace and humor to her role. In addition to the fine supporting performances, the Spanish locations give a sense of granduer to what is obviously a low budget (by Hollywood standards) production. Heston's direction is hit and miss with the shadows of Cecil B. De Mille and William Wyler looming large but not enough to sabotage the film. There are even excerpts from BEN HUR and the 1964 CLEOPATRA thrown in to lend scope to the battle scenes and they are skillfully incorporated. In the end ANTONY & CLEOPATRA is not as good as it could have been but it remains a worthwhile undertaking that I'll have no trouble revisiting.

This is very watchable,it keeps the prose to a minimum. The cheap production costs are always apparent. Try to get the Greek DVD,it's PAL but has a much sharper image than the U.S. version. It also uses a 448 audio track compared to the U.S. being only 192bit. They are the same version,but the PAL disk will show a shorter running time. PAL disks run about 4% faster than NTSC.