Cecil B. Demille @ Classic Move Favorites - Cleopatra, 1934

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Biblical & Historic Epics

CLEOPATRA, 1934

Cleopatra, was a continuation of the great spectacle which became DeMille's signature.Starring: Claudette Colbert, Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon.The film was a sexual extravaganza showing DeMille at his erotic best.The scene with the Royal Barge is truly breathtaking and was definitely an inspiration for the famous Elizabeth Taylor remake.I love this quote from DeMille the Man and His Pictures, by Gabe Essoe and Raymond Lee which follows and describes this scene better then I:

"The Royal Barge, for example, is an incredible fabrication, from its banks of oars each surmounted with a ram's head to a pillowed dias on which Cleopatra seduces Marc Antony.At her signal, an exhaustible supply of slave girls bursts out of every door to perform a series of exotic dances; a garlanded ox is led in, to be caressed by semi-naked girls, one of whom is the second before fade-out assumes a pose of sexual surrender before the animal; a nude group is whipped into submission by a huge slave; a net-full of girls, clad only in sea-weed, is dredged up to sprawl out wriggling on the deck and offer seashells full of jewels.When Antony succumbs to her wiles, Cleopatra gestures to the slaves and, as veils rise around her bed and signing girls strew them with flower petals, the cadence drummer strikes up the rhythm that sets the oars moving, and the barge moves slowly out to sea."

King of Kings, 1927

Sign of the Cross

Reap the Wild Wind

Samson & Delilah

Ten commandments, 1956

Ten Commandments, 1923

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This Cecil B. DeMille site published:
September 1, 2000
Last Update: June27, 2006

BIBLICAL & HISTORICAL EPICS

CLEOPATRA, 1934

Cleopatra, was a continuation of the great spectacle which became DeMille's signature.Starring: Claudette Colbert, Warren William and Henry Wilcoxon.The film was a sexual extravaganza showing DeMille at his erotic best.The scene with the Royal Barge is truly breathtaking and was definitely an inspiration for the famous Elizabeth Taylor remake.I love this quote from DeMille the Man and His Pictures, by Gabe Essoe and Raymond Lee which follows and describes this scene better then I:

"The Royal Barge, for example, is an incredible fabrication, from its banks of oars each surmounted with a ram's head to a pillowed dias on which Cleopatra seduces Marc Antony.At her signal, an exhaustible supply of slave girls bursts out of every door to perform a series of exotic dances; a garlanded ox is led in, to be caressed by semi-naked girls, one of whom is the second before fade-out assumes a pose of sexual surrender before the animal; a nude group is whipped into submission by a huge slave; a net-full of girls, clad only in sea-weed, is dredged up to sprawl out wriggling on the deck and offer seashells full of jewels.When Antony succumbs to her wiles, Cleopatra gestures to the slaves and, as veils rise around her bed and signing girls strew them with flower petals, the cadence drummer strikes up the rhythm that sets the oars moving, and the barge moves slowly out to sea."

King of Kings, 1927

Sign of the Cross

Reap the Wild Wind

Samson & Delilah

Ten commandments, 1956

Ten Commandments, 1923

back to filmography