Glad Tidings - Vol IV

It's been close to two years since our last installment of Glad Tidings, our pictorial tributes to gladiator movies (which, to be honest, are a sort of fallback post when we've run out of time for something more involved or time-consuming!) Truth is, I've had several instances in a row in which I've watched a movie with the intention of profiling it here, but then have wound up so disinterested in the product that I opted out of it! This time, I happened to watch a movie with no intention of paying tribute to it, but then discovered that it had some imagery and attributes that I felt like mentioning/sharing here. The film is Antony and Cleopatra (1972), a labor of love of Charlton Heston's that fizzled at the box office and slipped into obscurity. However, with the passage of time, it has amassed a certain level of appreciation from Shakespearean aficionados and fans of costume epics. The movie, which was beset by financing and distribution issues, scarcely has an American poster out there to be found! Most of the ones in use are, like this one, Belgian. And now to some of the screencaps from this famous story of love and war, with comments whenever warranted. (You may view the movie in widescreen here if you wish!)

Having ridden ferociously through the city with a message from Rome for Marc Antony, the messenger is told to wait.

He's busy at the moment! Cleopatra (Hildegarde Neil) is adorning her lover Antony (Charlton Heston) with makeup and jewelry...!

Meanwhile, Neil's entourage is gathered in a nearby room, hearing the predictions of a soothsayer. We absolutely love her servant Alexas in the aqua-colored tunic.

Alexas was played by Juan Luis Galiardo, a gorgeous Spanish leading man from the 1960s through the early-2010s.

Neil's servant Charmian was played by Jane Lapotaire who would play Cleopatra herself about a decade later (and to a fair amount of derision) in a television version of this play.

Finally ready to meet with the bearer of news, Heston emerges in his barely buttoned robe.

The Roman Proculeius is played by Julian Glover. This part is the one that Heston once played on Broadway opposite the legendary Katherine Cornell.

Heston's robe is unbuttoned so far down that we can't help but wonder what, if anything, is underneath!

Just when we think we'll lose our mind if we don't figure out what he's got under that cloak...

...he tears it off and shows us.

Outdoing the skimpy loincloths of Ben-Hur (1959) and Planet of the Apes (1968), he's got on a teeny little set of briefs with a hilarious modesty panel in front.

"Curtain up!" Ha ha!

Heston actually wore something even more scanty than this, if you can believe it, at the start of Julius Caesar (1970), in which he also played Marc Antony.

Enter Octavius Caesar...

...as played by John Castle.

See? Even though I've stretched the point a little, this is a sort of gladiator movie.

You might recall Castle as one of Katharine Hepburn's sons in The Lion in Winter (1968) or as The Duke in Man of La Mancha (1972.)

Up the lazy Nile...

How can I get a hand-held fan like this?

And how can I get a job like this??

Party time on the battleship.

With only one chick (upside down in red), it looks like some of the guys might have to pair off!

Party time at Cleo's place.

Meet Eunuch and the Castros. Any requests?

You may have to stab your own dinner in the aquarium...

As a child in elementary school, aqua was my favorite color, but I outgrew it. Now I'm rethinking that decision...!

Neil (who has few fans of her work here as Queen of the Nile) reminded one imdb.com commenter of the principal in Rock 'n Roll High School (1979), played by Mary Woronov. For a chuckle, look it up...

You're showing us the wrong pouch, Alexas!

Handsome Mr. Galiardo worked this same year in Heston's Call of the Wild, but suffered a serious nervous breakdown amid that troubled production at a strenuous location. Part of his role had to be replaced by another actor & character. He made a full recovery, though, and went on to a lengthy career in Spain up until his 2012 demise from cancer at age seventy-two.

Heston is often derided for his granite-like visage, which works sometimes and sometimes not. Neil was capable of some very severe, nearly deranged expressions at inappropriate times. Here, she reminds me of something one of my catty friends once said about Elijah Wood... that he never blinks and must have eyelids that close from the bottom instead of the top like a lizard!

One doesn't always think of Cleopatra as being in armor (Lord knows Liz didn't don any!), but here she is in battle gear of a sort.

It's really just a helmet and shoulder pads, sorta like what one might wear to a construction site in order to avoid injury.

Heston, who also directed this film, used outtakes from Ben-Hur (1959) in order to fill out the sea battle sequence. Some scenes cribbed from The Robe (1953), too!

In close-up, we see things like this...

...which supposedly is happening at the same time as this!

I love Castle's eyes here. True, he doesn't exactly provide a gallery of facial expressions (another one of my friends is always accusing him of having a "who farted?" look on his face!), but I nearly always enjoy him in things and I love the cut of his jawline.

Neil wasn't trying to ape La Liz, necessarily, but even if she wanted to, she'd be closer to 1972 Liz than 1963...! Is this the hair you expect to see on Cleopatra?!

If you really look at these "soldiers" from the "Egyptian" army, there are some that are either startlingly thin or staggeringly out of shape. And these are the gents they put in front!

I did like the swan-like horn that the bugler tooted on.

This was a spectacular stunt that I truly hope didn't injure the horse. Both it and the rider went careening down a hill, somersaulting! Note the stuntman instantly drops his sword.

Surely the man had something on, like flesh-toned tights, but it looks for all the world like he's bare-assed during the scene! LOL

When Heston did his roll in the dirt, he still had his sword in hand, which was long gone in the stuntman shot.

The eunuch Canidius, whose look I love, was played by Sancho Gracia. He had a lengthy screen career of nearly fifty years until lung cancer claimed him in 2012 at age seventy-five. It was he who took over for Galiardo on Call of the Wild.

I'm sorry, you want me to WHAT?

This was another nifty stunt. Glover wants inside that pyramid. So as he's talking to Cleopatra...

...he calls for his guards to make a set of stairs out of their shields...

...and runs up them, entering through the open window!

I think we all know that this won't end well...

What an asp....

BONUS PICS!

Heston caught no small amount of heat for his casting of Ms. Neil. He'd initially wanted Diana Rigg and also sought Anne Bancroft, with Glenda Jackson and Susannah York also being considered, before winnowing the choice down to Neil and Irene Papas.

This languid opening scene was used for the poster art, though Neil was changed to having her ornate headdress on and Heston was depicted wearing earrings and a pearl necklace. (I'm not making this up. See for yourself above!) The pearl necklace made it into the film. He breaks it apart and the beads fall onto her, but the earrings are nowhere in sight.

However, tireless investigator that I am, I have located an on-set photograph which shows Heston in his bejeweled state, being beguiled by his queenly lover...! This segment was trimmed out of the movie for whatever reason.

I told you that two years prior, in Julius Caesar (1970), Heston wore even less than he does in this movie as Marc Antony! Here he is about to start a race at the beginning of the movie. His (ugly) wig is three times bigger than his jockstrap!

Heston, a former artist's model, was never too shy about stripping down for his art. His loinclothy parts in The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur, Apes and even The War Lord (1965) for a little bit can testify to that. He doesn't look as terrific here at nearly fifty as he did in his prime, but few do.

A simple day at the beach was cause for beefcake, palpably on display...! But did you know that it was this was at the very dawn of his career?

In 1950, for the low-budget Julius Caesar, the first time he played Marc Antony, he spends the first fifteen minutes or so in this abbreviated costume! He even shows the better part of his ass briefly as he departs the scene. I guess if it's The Bible or Shakespeare one can get away with nearly anything...!

So his twenty-plus years of trotting around in next to nothing began right off the bat in 1950.

The End!