Watch Cleopatra For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

I'll tell you why so serious

hyped garbage

Quite a remarkable production, a key film on the continuum of American film that set the bar higher. Considering King Tut's tomb wouldn't be found for another ten years, the sets and costumes were well done, funny chubby Egyptian figures painted on the walls. Thank goodness D.W. Griffith was compelled to innovate a few years later but restoration funds were well spent on this historical film.Cleopatra is a very stagey film. Nothing happens here that could not happen in a theatre. Genuine exteriors are almost non-existent, and even simple exteriors, requiring only a field and a tree or two, are duplicated with backdrops. This of course was in an era when the theatre still commanded a good deal more respect than did the cinema. Remember that one of the earliest film companies, a precursor to Paramount, was originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays. Also note that the extras seem to have nothing really to do. They are all standing around seeming to look for direction. Most of the film is very long shots, once again, going back to theatre roots. The score is terrible and does not fit the film at all. I don't care for avant-garde stuff and the music definitely falls into that category. If someone were going to use that type of music I would think it would be better suited to something like a German expressionist style film, not a period piece "historical" type film. That noise Ms. Gardner (Cleopatra) was making at the beginning was just odd and distracting. Then the actual "singing" (if you can call it that because the words were pretty much unintelligible) was again distracting. I was trying to figure out what she was saying and ended up missing part of the movie. However,the sounds and the score is somebody in modern times trying to augment the film, so I can hardly blame Ms.Gardner for it one hundred years after the fact.I'm glad this film was restored, as it's an interesting piece of film history. Before the money men got involved there was a place for women behind the camera in writing and directing as well as owning their own studios as Helen Gardner did. It's also very interesting that she made many feature length films (80-90 minutes) as opposed to the one and two reelers of the time. Cleopatra is listed as being the first feature length film (6 reels) made in the U.S., although De Mille always incorrectly tried to claim that "The Squaw Man" - which he directed -was the first feature length film.Worthwhile for the novelty of it all.

I was watching with interest the 1912 production and found it fascinating by the different acting styles strong and weak in the primarily static shots until I realized that each scene may have meant to be tableaux that come to life. Charles Sindelar was a strong looking Anthony and thought the actress playing Octavia was more accessible to modern audiences.The so-called score made probably by some spoiled New York Artists especially that hideous groaning woman was really dreadful,but as with most scores to silents just a flick of the mute button can help as great silents stand on their silence alone!

...nor custom stale her infinite variety. - Wm. Shakespeare How fortunate we are that this early first feature epic survives in near entirety. It stands as a testimonial to one of the greatest and overlooked actresses of early cinema, the divine Helen Gardner. Miss Gardner was a prolific actress of the stage and early screen. She taught pantomine and was possibly the first star to form her own production company, the Helen Gardner Picture Corporation, of which this film was produced. Now granted this film seems stagey and it lacks some of Griffith's techniques but it boasts some fine performances and is important for its historical value. In my opinion Miss Gardner is the finest Cleopatra the screen has ever had. She is every inch the Queen of the Nile, beautiful, majestic, sexy. She had a strong screen presence and talent that is almost forgotten due to the fact that so many of her films are gone, which is why this film is of great importance. This film is based on the play by Victorien Sardou and was directed by Miss Gardner's husband Charles L. Gaskill. Miss Gardner also designed her costumes for this as she did for many of her roles. I had always wanted to see the 1917 Theda Bara version but as long as that film remains lost, Helen Gardner is the quintessential Cleopatra of the screen. Long live the Queen!

The Queen of the Nile turns out to be a zaftig hausfrau with long tangled hair and, seemingly, no eyeballs. But to be fair, her handmaidens appear to have been noshing liberally on the pomegranates, too. This 1912 full-length feature may be ambitious for its day in its attempt to bring ancient history alive in six or seven reels, and it's admirable that Helen Gardner, the Cleopatra, was an actor-manager with unusual prestige and power for a woman. But the movie is still ludicrous: the posturing and finger-pointing and flailing, the static camera, the rudimentary plotting where the two most powerful rulers of the ancient world appear never to govern, because they're too fixated on each other.There's a smitten slave who escapes death three or four times, a Marc Antony who does little but glower (give him credit -- he does have a romantic profile), and a lithe Octavia I'd leave this Cleo for in a minute. The sets and costumes are flimsy but at least they're of a piece, and it's sort of fun to see the Hudson River, somewhere around Nyack, standing in for Egypt. But even by its primitive 1912 standards, it's laughably unconvincing -- if silent pictures could talk, this one would have a New York accent.