Cleopatra

In France, young people were emerging from the archives of the Cinémathèque to write reverently for film publications, and later to make the films that became the Nouvelle Vague.

Here, movie critics were so much the financial and spiritual creatures of the industry that in 1962, Judith Christ was counted new and brave for having a few reservations about Cleopatra.

Magazines had staff movie critics, but no one paid much attention to them.

Newspaper movie critics were, in general, writers of extended blurbs for high-budget films.

It's the second most profitable film made in 1963.

It made more money than Cleopatra, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

It's the cultural impact on that film and the way that it shaped our understanding of that event.

You cannot underestimate that because Because you see President Kennedy dying.

First up, we are back with director Sergio Martino and actors Edwidge Fenech, George Hilton and Ivan Razumov for All the Colours of the Dark from 1972.

Then we stay in the 1970s for one of the biggest horror blockbusters of all time, which is, at the time of recording, also celebrating its 50th anniversary.

This is The Omen from director Richard Donner, starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Patrick Troughton and Billy Whitelaw.

Along the way, we'll be discussing the lives and careers of George Hilton and Ivan Razumov, why the whiskey brand J&B became ubiquitous with the Jallo, outrageous satanic panic around the first TV screening of The Omen in the UK, the career of actor Gregory Peck and much, much more.

mean, I think like as a decent comparison from the late 60s and into the 70s, obviously film itself, like American film is completely changing.

Like it is on this revolve, like Cleopatra comes out and completely kills the studios.

And then the next thing you know is that there's the American new wave that's just coming in bold and brash.

So for me, it's all the late 60s and into the 70s.

I

can't imagine you're going to like enjoy him in Cleopatra though, you know?

Yeah.

I feel like I'm looking some of the lower ones.

I think it might have to be like the Rosalind Russell, like the Citadel, you know, like something-

Yeah.

God, do you know the runtime on this Cleopatra movie?

It's one of the longest movies ever.

some of what is considered like some of the best movies of all time or like some old classics or whatever are perfectly fine movies, but they have these massive impressive scenes that seem really hard to pull off.

I'm thinking like Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor is like full of those or like Gone with the Wind, a movie that I think is okay.

But there's at least one very impressive scene of like a massive train yard full of wounded soldiers and like this long sweeping camera shot.

This used to be, This used to be what movies were, this kind of spectacle, and now you can recreate that with computers, and it's fine.

Okay

... or Cleopatra.

So it's, so it's the modern version of one you have to go into theaters and see.

Precisely.

Although he was one of the familiar faces you'd see rather than being a real star in his own right.

Perhaps his most glamorous film appearance came in 1963 with a part in Cleopatra, the enormous Hollywood epic starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Richard played Ptolemy XIII, the brother of Cleopatra.

Now when you look back at Cleopatra, it is difficult to imagine anything modest about it.

The sets were enormous, the costumes spectacular.

The cast was literally a cast of thousands, and obviously the budget was enormous.

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were, of course, the centre of the publicity storm, and somewhere in all of that was a young Richard O'Sullivan aged just 19 and appearing in one of the most famous films of the decade.

As a side note, the sets from Cleopatra were then subsequently used for the scenery for Carry On Cleo, which probably explains why that particular Carry On film has rather more superior production values than some of the others.