It was a regular spring day 1962 Italy … common outside a warm greeting between the very married Superstar Elizabeth Taylor And the very married actor Richard Burton as a photographer happened to catch. The “Kissing image,” As it would be known, be caught as wildfire, and the paparazzis never let go. Richard Burton called the subsequent press storm “Le Scandale”, and the world’s judgment quickly followed – included a condemnation from the Vatican’s newspaper which called it Taylor’s “Erotic vagrancy.”
In the middle of Le Scandale – one that Tcm host Ben Mankiewicz Calls “Biggest in the History of American Celebrities” – was a mammoth filmPerhaps the largest in the story of American Movie: 20th Century Fox’s ”Cleopatra. ”
“The first photograph of those who kissed when rumors circulated that they were involved was (taken by) a paparazzo that hid under a car, under like a Fiat … that lay on the ground and took a picture of them,” Sa Mankiewicz said in an interview with IndieWire. “(Fellow” Cleopatra “star) Martin Landau (SA) that there were photographers in the trees. This had never happened on a movie before.”
The movie would always be a gigantic business, but an almost comical series of unfortunate events Had limited it to becoming one of the most expensive images that Hollywood had ever produced … long before Burton even joined the project. At the time of their steaming attempts, “Cleopatra” began to have been in production – in passes and starts – for about four years. Taylor had signed on for the unheard of $ 1 million in 1959 (A salary that she reportedly asked for only in jokes).
Then she had health problems (she almost died).
The original Marc Antony and Julius Caesar lost (Stephen Boyd and Peter Finch respectively).
The first director Rouben Mamoulian lost.
Film was scrapped.
Many drafts of the script were rejected.
The entire production moved from London to Rome, where sets must be reconstructed.
When the cameras rolled on “Cleopatra” scenes that would actually make it the inflated four -hour epic final cut, it was not only over the budget -it had blown past any budget of a budget. A time it was only Production 1900s Fox had gone. That studio a lot back in Century City? Practically empty.
It would be thanks to the perceived failure in the film – notority that it may not have served – that the type of studio system that the American film industry had been running since the 20th century would largely die. New Hollywood Quickly come in with an era that would be defined by Maverick film creators and stars with increased financial agency and power.
Almost Everyone and everything involved in “Cleopatra” survived and enjoyed the release. Taylor and Burton survived the scandal and appeared together in all-hour “Who is afraid of Virginia Wolff?” Fox eventually released “The Sound of Music” and recovered financially. Co-star Rex Harrison led in the biggest film 1964: “My Fair Lady”, and won an Oscar Prize for it.
But then it was Joseph L. Mankiewicz -The one-time boy wonders of Hollywood, who set an Oscar record by winning back-to-back trophy for both writing and directing (1949’s “A Letter to Three Wives and 1950’s” All About Eve “).
“Cleopatra” would break Joe Mankiewicz.
When the film was wound, in theaters, and finally sent some money back to Fox, Mankiewicz was a shell from the power plant he had once been. He would direct only three more narrative features, of which only one would be really critical or commercial success (the brilliant “Sleuth” 1972). At once the most promised author/director Combo, he would never write a new script, even if he lived another 30 years after the publication of “Cleopatra.” Not only that, but the filmmaker struggled to write something At all, including personal letters and Christmas cards.
“The action is thickened,” Turner Classic Movies’ Podcast series It handles various aspects of the Hollywood history, will explore the troubled story of this severely Egyptian epic during its new season – out July 17 – through a unique personal lens. Released first for IndieWireTCM has revealed a trailer, told by Joe Mankiewicz’s big nephew, Ben, who serves as a serial host.
“(Joe) would have said that his greatest professional regret would have really been” Cleopatra. “He said it was an act of” whore. “He did it for the money.
“Cleopatra” became an albatross for Ben’s uncle … a nightmare that he could never escape and something he never wanted to discuss again. Through personal diaries that Joe’s grandson Nick Davis also used in his double cinema by Joe and Herman “Competing with idiots” In 2021, the “Plot reconstructs” the story for the complicated production through its author/director’s eyes.
“(When) most people think of Cleopatra, they think about the business and scandal, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and then this type of myth (about) the movie that destroyed a studio,” said Ben Mankiewicz. “We send many of these myths in the podcast, but we probably wouldn’t have done (the podcast) without the family angle … Joe was broken by it properly. And he had been one of the really finest filmmakers in the 1950s. But it made a number on him and it was worth investigating.”
The Mankiewicz family is true Hollywood -royalty. Joe’s brother Herman won an Oscar For some overlooked pearl called “Citizen Kane.” Joe’s son Empty Wrote three James Bond girls. Herman’s son Don wrote a point of features in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Ben’s father Frank was president of National Public Radio, was Robert F. Kennedy, SR.’s press secretary, and led George McGovern’s presidential campaign from 1972. Frank’s second son Josh is a journalist at NBC’s “Nightline.”
“It was a line that I heard a lot grow up. Family members used to say that,” says Ben Mankiewicz in “Plot Thicks” promot. “The line was that my grandfather wrote the best movie ever made – ‘Citizen Kane’ – and that my great uncle directed the worst movie ever made.”
By reshaping in “The Plot thickens”, it becomes clear that the efforts in the middle of “Cleopatra” were the passionate film professional – people who cared about the films. If Joe Mankiewicz had his way, in fact, there would have been two epic instead of one: some focused on Julius Caesar, the other on Marc Antony.
“This Sort of Historical Costume Drama is not my Kind of Movie, But… One of the myths is that is the Worst Movie ever made. It’s not even one of the 3,000 Worst Movies ever made. RELEASED IT AS TWO THREE-HOR MOVIES, THAT Some of the Issues-The Pacing Problems, Where It Actually Seems Slow-Would have been better, because you would have had two tighter, three hours movies, “explained legs. “It’s fun. Now, if you say:” Listen, I know you asked me to shoot a movie, but I’ve actually shot two. Do you want both? “Every studio would be like,” is this a trick question?
As it stands, even if it has been different versions presented over the years“Cleopatra” is found as a 243 Minute film. But it would eventually be a success on the books. It got a best image nomination, and although it actually did not make a profit for a few years because of its reported $ 44 million budgetIt was not the total economic disaster that someone later claimed – in reality it was the best gross movie in 1963.
“Spyros Skouras had been the company’s president before Darryl Zanuck returned. Spyros quit, but basically got fired,” Ben explained. “But his time had stopped, and he and the board blamed him for the failure from ‘Cleopatra’, and then Zanuck came and blamed Joe. Spyros Skouras … what he really (was good at was) his relationships and (establishment) business with theater owners, and he had set up a deal to tickets to tickets. “And so, just outside the bat, Cleopatra” had $ 20 million very fast … and then more after that at checkout, to be – okay, it lost a lot of money – but still brought back, let’s say, $ 25 million
So this special “The Plot Thicks” season is a little different for TCM’s resident Savant. More than the narrator of a fascinating chapter in film history, Mankiewicz reaches his own family’s legacy and reputation for a film whose impact, even though it is great, perhaps unfairly perceived.
“What you get from this podcast is (that) Joe threw everything into this. I mean, he poured his heart and soul into this movie. Because of the money, (it was) this view that he came in, he was not the right director, (and) he did not know what he was doing. He definitely knew what he was doing,” Ben said. “He just tried to do too much, among the other things, tried to do too much. First and foremost he was a therapist for Elizabeth and for Richard and to Rex and for everyone else on the role.”
Joe Mankiewicz used the speed, Ben explained, to help him through the incredible shooting days. He actually finished main photography in the wheelchair after incorrectly postponing and meeting an sciatic nerve.
“He sits in a wheelchair and he has to get over sand. So they carried him out to the shot on a stretcher. And he is like writing on the stretcher, while a bunch of guys perform him so he can sit and direct the stage,” Ben said. “(His) diaries reveal a guy who was a director during the day and then often would go home (and) write the script at night … he needed help.”
This, together with controversy surrounding Le Scandale, weather delays, the recurring health problems for role members, haggling over the film’s final cut, and of course the film’s legacy as the film that changed Hollywood … everything will be explored when “The action thickens: Cleopatra” Start dropping every week episode from July 17, wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out the trailer, which is first exclusively released to IndieWire, below:
