West Norwood Picturehouse is delighted to welcome author Patrick Humphries to accompany this screening of the infamous 1963 film, Cleopatra.
Humphries’ book, Cleopatra and the Undoing of Hollywood, is a story of lust, excess and hubris – and how one film almost single handedly set in motion the decline of the major Hollywood studios.
Other films may have taken more money, won more awards or attracted better reviews, but none could come close to the legend that is Cleopatra.
What began in 1958 as a remake of the 1917 Theda Bara film, starring Joan Collins and projected to cost $2 million, would open five years later, having cost nearly twenty times as much. The budget had skyrocketed enormously as the production went through extravagant sets in two different countries, two directors and six leading men – and this was on top of Elizabeth Taylor’s $1 million fee.
But it was the off-screen romance between the on-screen leads that really cemented Cleopatra’s place in cinema history. Within weeks of Richard Burton’s arrival in Italy, he and Taylor embarked on a tumultuous and passionate love affair that kept the Cuban Missile Crisis off the front pages and was denounced by the Vatican.
It is an epic tale of love and lust; of gossip, money, sex, movie-star madness, studio politics and paparazzi journalism... Within the saga of Cleopatra lies the end of the era of Hollywood’s studio system, the seeds of the Swinging Sixties, and the stuff of timeless movie legend.
Join us for a talk and book signing after the screening!
