Sadly Over-hyped

Not even bad in a good way

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Whoever told GBS he was a screenwriter. Probably the same dork who told Pia Zadora she was an actress. This is the kind of movie where the blocks of dialogue complement the blocks of buildings in Alexandria.Talk about Burnham wood coming to Dunsinane, this is like the March of the Redwoods with people like Raymond Lovell, Basil Sydney, Stewart Granger etc, leaving a trail of sawdust all over the set and Ernest Thesiger anticipating Charles Hawtrey by a good ten years or so. It was shot in 1945 so that the sound is pristine with no concession to the great outdoors so there is literally no atmos of any kind be it an interior or exterior scene. Watching this is a new way to grow old.

The first few minutes are dry and dull but suddenly the sun comes out with the appearance of Leigh. Granted, I'm infatuated with her but I don't think anyone else could deny the sparkle and power of her presence in this film as, though in her thirties in real life, she becomes a teenage girl just beginning to experience her sexuality and the power it has over men. In those scenes where Raines acts with her, he reflects her and shines, too, and the picture takes on a light air. And there are patches of British style humor. But in those rather long stretches where GBS indulges himself in dialogue where he fancies himself to be Shakespeare (and Shakespeare he ain't!) it is dry torture, like licking a pyramid.So watch it. To deny yourself seeing Leigh even in her few, spotty scenes of sunlight would be like denying yourself a picnic because of intermittent Raines.

I first saw this movie about 20 years ago on AMC, back in the days when AMC (American Movie Classics) included plenty of vintage British films. I have since viewed "Caesar and Cleopatra" at least half a dozen times, and, lately--especially in the wake of such deeply cynical flicks as "Gladiator" and the HBO series "Rome"--have come to appreciate its Shavian wit and the possibility of portraying human foibles without reveling in human degeneracy.The 1945 "Caesar and Cleopatra" was one of a series of attempts to capture major G.B. Shaw plays on film. The movie is somewhat eccentric by any standards, a hugely expensive theatrical production (tons of sand were shipped in from Egypt during wartime for use on the giant sound stage outside London where the movie was filmed, with the filming often interrupted by German bombing raids)that almost finished director Gabriel Pascal's career, and the movie was a commercial failure. But in retrospect, the performances of Claude Rains (Caesar), Vivien Leigh (Cleopatra), Flora Robson (Ftatateeta), Basil Sydney (Rufio), Francis L. Sullivan (Pothinus), and Stuart Granger (Apollodoros), among others, are consistently spellbinding.Of course, Shaw had his own obscure political reasons for writing the play (first produced in 1889), and it's not one of his best, but it seems to me a tribute to his genius and to the residual moral clarity of an earlier era, that "Caesar and Cleopatra," even in the stagy movie version, still captures the imagination, with a stunning send-up of human folly and degradation yet without the lame underpinnings of insistent vulgarity, gratuitous violence, and obsessive sex. If the current run of tell-all sword-and-sandal spectacles starts to wear you down, go back to "Caesar and Cleopatra" for a refresher course in human wit.

Although a great fan of Leigh as an actress, I did not care for her portrayal of Cleopatra as a spoiled, manipulative child who pouts and cries in order to get her way with old fuddy duddy Ceasar. This may indeed have made a witty stage play, but the movie was dull and lumbering. I kept going back to it hoping strongly it would get better, but to no avail. Not the least of it's irritating qualities for me was the total lack of historical accuracy. Cleopatra, though young, was acknowledged by contemporaries to be highly educated and intelligent, bred to rule and accustomed from birth to the political intrigues of her dynasty. She would not have needed Caesar to constantly prop her up and remind her to behave as a queen. I was sorry to see Leigh's talent wasted in this film. She is lovely to watch as always, and lights up the screen with her presence, and the acting of other cast members is likewise topnotch, but sadly none of that can save this dud.