Cleopatra (1934)

Beleaguered by Rome, Queen Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) shores up power by seducing Cesar (Warren William). When his reign is cut short (spoiler alert!), she pivots to Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon). Things don’t go well for him either.

Director Cecil B. DeMille wanted to produce a version of Cleopatra for the common man, and by all accounts he succeeded. Loads of pre-code sex, corny and awkward dialog, Busby Berkeley-esque cinematography, it was quite the spectacle. Impressively one of three Colbert films nominated for Best Picture, but they did nominate twelve that year. She would strike pay dirt with It Happened One Night.

In preparation for the production, DeMille screened the 1917 version. Three and a half years later, that print was destroyed, making this the oldest surviving version of the story. To flaunt the Motion Picture Production Code, he included as much sex as he could get away with, including an opening featuring a slave girl who appears to be naked to those inclined to believe she is.

C. Aubrey Smith crafted a career playing the “elderly Englishman”. He managed to appear in 110 films, including some pretty good ones, despite being past fifty when his career began. Here he was an elderly General. Antony’s Wilcoxon would later achieve immortality as the Bishop in Caddyshack. Well, maybe immortality isn’t the right word.

Cleopatra is an interesting, if peculiar watch. The dialog is, by design, jarringly informal. The Oscar-winning cinematography is still impactful, but limited by the format of the day. Look for the impressive crane long take. AMRU 3.

“What? Have you heard of Cleopatra?
Of course. All kinds of things. Is she black?”

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

Trapeze artist Holly (Betty Hutton) has finally won the coveted center ring, but boss man boyfriend Brad (Charlton Heston) has sawdust in his veins, you see. To help the show he hires hotshot Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) and gives him the center ring. But he promised that to her! What, does he have sawdust in his veins?

Well, Sebastian (the Great) does his best to show off as well as take after Holly with a vein of another kind. Whatever will Holly do? After all, it's not like she has sawdust in her veins! Oh, yea, and then there's Buttons the Clown (James Stewart) who never takes his makeup off. What's up with that?

This movie had everything! A love triangle, the spectacle of the tawdriest show on earth, a behind the scenes look at how they set up the tents, a three hour run time! Everything short of elephant poop. What more could you ask for? What, don't you have sawdust in your veins?

The principle attraction for me was the fact that it won Best Picture over High Noon (AMRU 3.5) and I had to see how a circus movie could do such a thing. I have to guess that the controversy over the underlying theme of High Noon along with a popular fascination of the topic swayed the day. Calling it tedious is something of an understatement. It was just over two and a half hours, but many dull scenes could have been cut to bring it much closer to 2, if not under. It had one side story after another, with Gloria Grahame (actual hottie) and Dorothy Lamour (you know, from the Hope and Crosby movies) having smallish rolls. Plus there was this gangster sub-plot that seemed to go nowhere.

Anyhow, having said all that, it wasn't too bad of a movie. Clearly no High Noon, but still worth seeing. AMRU 3. Brew some coffee.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Gloria Swanson was a 50 year old washed up silent film star trying to make her comeback. She plays Norma Desmond, a 50 year old washed up silent film star trying to make her comeback. One thing Gloria has over poor Norma is that her comeback film is good. Very good, in fact.

William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a hack writer down to his last straw. While escaping the men who would reposes his car, he hides in what he believes to be an abandoned mansion on the famous boulevard. The mansion is in fact occupied by the above mentioned prima donna and her faithfully loopy butler.

Norma wrote an enormous and ridiculous script that would be her 'return' to cinema but it needs the touches of a hack writer to clean it up. Joe needs cash and has no appointments on his social calendar. Slowly, Joe falls under the thumb of the melodramatic Norma. Every time he attempts to assert himself, she pulls him back in.

In the final analysis, everybody is a phony. Everybody is trying to get something from somebody else. Except the hot Nancy Olson.

Here are a couple cool things: It is reveled that butler Max Von Mayerling is really Norma Desmond's first director. He is played by real life director Enrich von Stroheim. There is a scene (which I missed most of because my library DVD was, well, from the library) where he runs the projector for a screening of an old Norma Desmond film, which is in fact Queen Kelly, an old Gloria Swanson film that was directed by Stroheim! 1950 and Hollywood had turning it's critical eye onto itself!

Also, there is a scene where Joe, Norma, and a few friends play cards, which I missed most of because ... you know. Anyhow, the other card players were washed up has-been silent film stars Buster Keaton (a favorite of mine from my youth) and Anna Q. Nilsson.

There are a lot of other things to explore with this film (like, what's Jack Webb doing in the movie, and what's up with the dead monkey?) but I'll leave them to other people. I really enjoyed the movie. AMRU 4.

"She was the greatest of them all. You wouldn't know, you're too young. In one week she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later he strangled himself with it!"