BBC4 21:00 Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood
Prince Monalulu
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Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood
One for the movie buffs, looks and sounds like an old American doc.
Feature-length documentary recounting the making of Cleopatra, which starred Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.
The 20th Century Fox's 1963 epic film has been called the most expensive film of all time, the biggest ever flop and the film that nearly bankrupted a Hollywood studio, while the scandal of the on-set romance between its two stars caused a media storm. Featuring rare footage, the film's original uncut trailer and interviews with those involved.
One for the movie buffs, looks and sounds like an old American doc.
Feature-length documentary recounting the making of Cleopatra, which starred Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.
The 20th Century Fox's 1963 epic film has been called the most expensive film of all time, the biggest ever flop and the film that nearly bankrupted a Hollywood studio, while the scandal of the on-set romance between its two stars caused a media storm. Featuring rare footage, the film's original uncut trailer and interviews with those involved.
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I'm watching, and interested - but I'm sure this show has been on several times before. Can't recall which channel, though. The title is very familiar.
Robert Culp?? doing the voiceover, various faces from 1995, I bet it's been around the houses before it ended up here.
It's interesting though, fair few names to wiki later
I wonder if they've done a doc on Heavens Gate, that killed as studio IIRC.
Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood (2001)
Hosted by Robert Culp, this two-hour program combines film clips, behind the scenes footage, and recent interviews to create a look at the troubled 1958-1963 production. The interviews include a few surviving (at the time) actors such as Hume Cronyn and Martin Landau, plus 1995 bits from Roddy McDowall.
I've never attempted to sit through the actual film, wouldn't bother not my sort of thing.
I'd could sit through the various test shots and rehearsals for ages.
I've always wondered how the hell studios manage to lose cans raw, unedited footage, how footage is found again years later is a little more understandable.
I recall reading that Carry On Cleo used leftover sets from the Burton/Taylor picture. This documentary showed that the sets were transported from Pinewood to Rome in the early stages of the messy, drawn out production, though. Were some left at Pinewood for the Carry On team to eventually make use of?
Im not sure - that's what I wanted to find out. I know that sets and costumes were used in Cleo, and was interested in how it worked out that way.
I saw a load of sets getting smashed in the doc.
Probably a mixture of smashing up stuff that was too big/in poor condition/expensive to be moved.
The smaller/better quality sets been kept in storage by Pinewood, for use at some time in the future, they'd been paid for them.
I want to know more about that galleon with the gold leaf, expensive rigging and palm trees.
I could watch a good couple of hours about the nuts n bolts of the whole enterprise.
The actual making of the film and the disaster as were the attempts to film it in the UK, was well covered by the papers at the time.
If the Carry On team did use leftover sets (and I'm sure they did - it also appeared that they used a couple of crowd scene shots from 'Cleopatra') it will be the first of two times they benefitted from a movie featuring Burton and Taylor. In Carry On Henry, apparently Sid James used a costume that had been made for Burton in 'Anne of the Thousand Days' (in which Taylor had a blink and you'll miss it cameo).
Elizabeth Taylor could be and often was a very effective actress. However, she excelled at playing weak and/or shrewish (sometimes borderline unstable, out of control) characters. Suddenly Last Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf - she was great in those movies. Here she had to play a regal and commanding part - instead she came across as a screechy harridan. Of course, the film had many faults: the the dialogue was perfectly awful - so awful that no actor could make it work, and it was handicapped by poor planning and disastrous editing (as this documentary showed). But at root, it was clear that Taylor got the part because she was a huge star and stunningly attractive. She was all wrong for it, and made the Queen of the Nile look like a drunk socialite arguing her way out of a New York cocktail party.
I wish Sophia Loren had done the picture. Then again, the production was such a mess that it probably couldn't have been saved - and the world would have been denied the Hollywood romance of Taylor and Burton without the movie as it happened.
It's unlikely to have aired on any of the main US networks.
Some of the documentaries being included on Blurays last for several hours.
As before , many of the longer documentaries get edited down to appear on network tv.
When C4 aired the 2 hour documentary on the Planet of the Apes movies it was chopped in half .
Same thing happened with The Fantasy Worlds of Irwin Allen although that did end up showing complete years later by BBC4
Yes she was fine in some other films, her performance in this was so disappointing after seeing her in "Butterfield 8," which was highly acclaimed and for which she got an Oscar for "Best Actress."
Very true - she was good in that too. I did notice the documentary implied that she received the Oscar more for beating the illness that nearly killed her rather than her performance, but it was all before my time so I don't know much about the politics of it.
I do wonder if 'Cleopatra' might have turned out to be a better film if it had went as originally planned - a lower budget historical drama with Joan Collins in the title role. I'm not a huge fan of Ms Collins, and do think she always *looked* much less classy than Taylor, but she did a fine job as an evil Egyptian Queen in 'Land of the Pharaohs'. I have to say, the dull and plodding 'Cleopatra' we all know at least boasted Rex Harrison, who was about the only saving grace. Roddy McDowall looked the part as Octavian - but yeesh, some of those lines...
"The soup is hot. The soup is cold. Antony is alive. Antony is dead."
Watching that programme it was the first time I'd ever seen it said that some thought she only got the Oscar for Butterfield 8 cos she'd recovered from her serious illness!
Like Hollywood rewarding her for her determination to get well when she nearly died!
Thanks. Came on here to ask if it's repeated again. Missed the start so decided to record the repeat at 2am. Just sat down to watch it now and as soon as the speaking started, the picture shrunk to reveal a woman doing sign language. I put up a bit of cardboard to stop her distracting me but when the talking stops, the picture expands again ffs. nb tv companies, it's not just deaf people that can't read subtitles who stay up late.
Deaf people are nocturnal.
Yes!
I too have often pointed it out when signing is mentioned on here.
But it can be amusing, there was a documentary on BBC 4 once on Al Jolson. The later scheduling was signed. I can still picture the "large woman in the corner" signing furiously as Al sang.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syz70OKRTQA
D-i-x-i-e gave her serious problems, I can't recall how she signed his whistling most of one chorus.