Search - Cleopatra 75th Anniversary Edition (Universal Backlot Series) (1934) on DVD

Surprisingly refreshing film but it is aging

Jagoda Urban-Klaehn | Idaho Falls, ID USA | 04/10/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I borrowed this film from the library, although I wanted to watch a famous Liz Taylor version again. But it was surprisingly well done with interesting historical scenes, beautiful Egyptian boats and antic costumes. Although Liz Taylor Cleopatra's surpassed all other movies with its costs, this earlier film was not cheap also. The action was fast, actors good.

My biggest complain - the makeup of all the women including Cleopatra was definitively from 30-es, so they did not look really like Egyptian women from 2 th. years ago but rather like women from 30-es in masquerade costumes. Men looked much more realistic, but women makeup was not good.

Still, nice to watch."

More hysterical than historical

George W. Lynn | 04/02/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Watching Claudet Colbert in DeMille's 1934 extravaganza, Cleopatra is quite a giggle these days. Why don't they make movies like this anymore? Watch this movie and find out. The whole movie production seems to have been more inspired by the Ziegfield Follies than ancient Rome and Egypt. I was particularly entranced by the leopard girls' charming dance performance, and the way, way, way over the top theatrical production of the countless attendents in Cleopatra's boudoir on board her yacht in drawing the curtains over Mark Anthony and Cleopatra with flower petals falling profusely from the ceiling as they retire to her bed only to have the film cut away to the oars stroking back and forth. I'm still struggling to figure out what the shag carpet wall covering behind Cleopatra as she met with Mark Anthony was trying to represent. Really, it all has to be seen and experienced to be properly appreciated. Claudet's not bad at all though, although the actors playing the Romans look and sound more like college football players."