Cleopatra: 75th Anniversary Edition

Cecil B. DeMille is the epitome of the classical Hollywood epic director, a filmmaker whose early 1930s pre-code pictures mixed the lavish with the lurid. The Sign of the Cross (1932), a Christians-to-the-lions biblical epic filled with displays of sex, decadence, and barely-clothed flesh, offered a winning formula (sin followed by divine retribution) that DeMille returned to in the even more spectacular Cleopatra (1934). Claudette Colbert stars as the Egyptian Queen who is quite the flirt when Julius Caesar (Warren William) comes to Egypt, although she keeps her power hitched to the winning side when Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) takes his place. Cleopatra's royal entertainments for Antony look more Goldwyn Follies than ancient Egyptian, with showgirls in revealing costumes prancing through absurd set pieces. The war scenes, however, are magnificent (at least those without the sloppy back projection), combining lavish miniatures with recycled battle scenes from silent epics. Rather sluggish at times and awfully stagy (with Colbert playing Cleo as a seductive gold digger and William turning Julius Caesar into her sugar daddy), Cleopatra makes a mockery of history, but it's also often oddly fun and remains a distinctive slice of early Hollywood cinema. This 75th anniversary edition features DVD extras including audio commentary by critic/filmmaker F.X. Feeney, three featurettes (on Colbert, DeMille, and “Forbidden Film: The Production Code Era”), and a pack of lobby cards. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)