Would you buy a Cleopatra: Director's Cut? (1 Viewer)

[James Pfann]

I wish i could just find a copy of the current DVD of Cleo that was not SCRATCHED. I have returned it 5 times, and all 5 times 2 of the 3 discs were badly scuffed...and the extra disc in the paper sleeve!.............

There's a 3rd disc? :b

I had no idea there's a 3rd disc in the set. Guess what I'll be doing when I get home.

"Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!"

 

[Eric Paddon]

Also, when buying it make sure you get a copy from the corrected second printing that has the Exit Music, which was missing from the first printing. I think an AMC sticker on the box is the way to tell them apart.

 

[jason:g]

Would you buy the mini-series starring Billy Zane and Timothy Dalton?

 

[DaveMK]

Just got done watching the Cleopatra dvd and features and YES I would be interested in a longer cut.

But, it's great to know a big shot expert like Robert Harris can be DEAD WRONG like anyone else here. In his post he say the long cut was only under 5 hours. Either he is wrong or Martin Landau, Tom Mankiewicz, Chris Mankiewicz & just about every fact of the documentary was wrong. Landau spends over 3/4 of his comm talking about the 6 hour cut and all the cut scenes. Tom Mankiewicz talks repeatedly about the hoped for 2, 3-hour versions etc. The featurette spends tons of time talking about the director's wish for a BTTF type duel realese 6 months apart for the 2 halves. They also speak about the director showing Zanuck a 5 hour 26 minute version and Zanuck demanding much more being cut & lastly the final 10 minutes of the featurette talk exclusively about a future hoped for Reconstruction of the 6 hour version. Either Harris is wrong or all of the first hand principles are senile.

 

[Everett S.]

Yes for me!

 

[Stan Rozenfeld]

A couple of years ago I listened to an excellent Teaching Company course on Ancient Egypt. In the last lecture, the professor went over some of the movies on the subject and what was wrong with them from a historical perspective. As I remember it, he singled out this movie in particular as being very accurate historically both in narrative and presentation.

I, for one, enjoyed the movie tremendously. I would love to see an extended cut of this film.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

An interesting note: Someone on eBay is currently selling 120+ costume stills from the aborted London Mamoulian production - for $25,000!! The eBay reference number is: 6232049444 The costumes are quite different then the ones the make it into the final film.

Still hoping for the 6-hour director's cut!

Andy

 

[EricSJorg]

Not that we're yet any closer to getting out Cleopatra Director's Cut today, but we do have a relatively new release of the movie from Fox in their new Award Series. As near as i can tell this is just a 2 disc version of the Five Star Collection.

Upon listening to the commentary most of the participants feel rather invested in finding the 6 hour cut of this movie and reassembling it. The fact that Fox has released this title with a commentary track continually making mention of it, one would think they may begin to get the idea that this would be a worthwhile venture.

With this release making the movie slightly more accessible again perhaps some movement may begin towards unearthing this cut just through knowledge of it.

 

[Joe Caps]

This is wishful thinking. Look at the original documentary and they tell of Foxs search for the material several years ago. ONly a few dailies showed up. Hardly anything to reconstruct a film around.

 

[Jack Cleveland]

I would buy one as well- Loved the movie when I saw it about 10 years ago- I'll be adding the 3 disc to my list of movies to get for my home theater.

Jack

 

[Charles Ellis]

Okay, guys- the closest we'll get to see a topless Liz is in The Driver's Seat, in which in an early scene she's wearing the world's most transparent bra in a store dressing room, leaving nothing to the imagination!! Richard Burton once declared her breasts "apocalyptic", adding that "empires would topple before they withered".
This film is available on DVD in public domain versions. See for yourself...

 

[dana martin]

Yes i would, in a heart beat.

but if fox were to do this i believe that it would require a new doc, and this time i would hope that they would get Dame Taylor's involvement. If at all possible it should be in comparison to what WB did with Ben Hur, everything but the kitchen sink, include what remains of all the silents that they own as well, alas when and if it happens consider it sold.

And as somone stated earlier, about wanting the Clobert version; be happy 5-23-2006 will be here soon.

 

[Andrew Budgell]

Still hoping for this someday! Way back on page 1, someone said that the footage exists in B&W, without sound. Does anyone know anything about this?

Andy

 

[Mark B]

I am HIGHLY curious to see any of the deleted CLEOPATRA footage. A reconstruction, even with stills and silent title cards, of the two (intended) individual films would be fascinating.

 

[ACTIUM]

YES, I WOULD BUY A DIRECTOR'S CUT OF CLEOPATRA !

 

[battlebeast]

ABSOLUTLY!!!

 

[BethHarrison]

There are some great revelations about how much money Fox wasted on Cleopatra in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century-Fox-Corporate-Financial-Filmmakers/dp/0810842440/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297914479&sr=8-1-spell

For example, Fox signed Nunnully Johnson to write the script for $140,000, but the original director Rouben Mamoulian flat out refused to work with him! So Johnson was paid $140,000 to do nothing, or as Aubrey Solomon writes, he was paid that much money to write "...just two words - his name on the contract".

But it is gets even funnier. The second director Joseph Mankiewicz signed a contract to write and direct the film for $45,000 A DAY! Also, the original sets - worth $800,000 - were built in England, which was completely written off when the production returned to the U.S. Fox also bought the U.S. rights to this film http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045712/combined for $500,000 because they were worried it would be reissued in the U.S., thus detracting from their film.

The film was easily Fox's best performer of 1963, it made $26 million. The only problem is, it cost $40 million to make, even though the initial budget was $4.5 million.

Of course Elizabeth Taylor was paid $1 million, but she also received additional royalities by forcing Fox to shoot the film in Todd-AO, which meant she received an extra fee!

 

[Andrew Budgell]

I've heard that in the end Elizabeth Taylor made $7 million off of Cleopatra, including all of the overages, etc.

Incredible!

 

[kenNew]

Yes I would buy a Director's Cut of Cleopatra but, just for the record, I would settle for a Blu-ray of the Theatrical Cut. At least I could then watch something of this film on my large, front-projection screen. I have the DVD and the extras are superb but the movie itself, when blown up by a projector, looks pretty poor.

 

[Joe Caps]

Beth Harrison, I have that book on the financial history of Fox. It's great and a real eye opener.

Hate to raiin on this parade, but everyone keeps quoting from that doc about the making of cleo, even quoting stuff that aint in that doc at all.

What IS in thedoc, everyone refuses to believe. They searched for a long time and came up with very little. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Studios rarely keep trims and outs for these films.

This other story that somebody knows someone sone where that knows all the footage is there in black and white without sound. I really doubt it. It was shot in eastman color 70mm. Even the few shots Fox DID Fox did find were color. Folks, it aint there!!