Publcity still from the early French film Cléopâtre (Ferdinand Zecca, Henri Andréani, 1910) with Madeleine Roch as Cleopatra and Stacia Napierkowska as the dying messenger. Photo: Pathé Frères.
Vintage French magazine cover of L'Illustration, 25 October 1890. Cover image: scene from the stage play Cléopâtre by Victorien Sardou and Emile Moreau, performed at the Théâtre de la Porte St Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. Artwork by Adrien-Emmanuel Marie, engraving by Michelet. The sets were designed by Jean-Baptiste Lavastre. In the same issue of L'Illustration, another artwork by Marie was given, depicting Cleopatra listening behind a curtain to the accusations against her put forward by Mark Antony's friends. Many elements of the scenography and costumes in this scene return in the Pathé film Cléopâtre (Ferdinand Zecca, Henri Andréani, 1910).
French postcard. Sarah Bernhardt in the play 'Cléopâtre' by Victorien Sardou and Emile Moreau. It was first performed in 1890 by Sarah Bernhardt at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.
Czechoslovakian postcard by PUTF. Still from the American epic Cleopatra (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor as the Egyptian queen, here entering Rome with a grandiose style.
Vintage postcard. Image: poster artwork for Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963), with Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar, Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, and Richard Burton as Mark Antony.
A proud and cruel Egyptian queen
In Cléopâtre (Ferdinand Zecca, Henri Andréani, 1910), the proud and cruel Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (Madeleine Roch) seduces the Roman conqueror Mark Antony, despite his betrothal to Octavia, sister of Octavian, the future emperor Augustus. Octavian struck down Mark Antony's army. When Cleopatra hears of Mark Antony's defeat, she forces the messenger of the bad news to drink a deadly poison. The messenger was played by dancer-actress Stacia Napierkowska, who performed a true dance of death. The heartless queen seems to rejoice in the messenger's final contortions. After Antony's suicide, Cleopatra also killed herself by the bite of a deadly viper in order not to become Rome's slave.
The film was inspired by the play 'Cléopâtre' by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, who wrote it for actress Sarah Bernhardt. 'La divine Sarah' played the lead role when the play premiered in late 1890 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin, Paris. The play was an adaptation of William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra'.
The sets of the play inspired some of the sets in the film, such as the terrace scene, with the overhanging and the double-winged symbol in the back. Instead, the film directors reused parts of the film's sets for another film set of their next film, Le Caprice du vainqueur / The Winner's Whim (Ferdinand Zecca, Henri Andréani, 1910), which focused on the resistance of the Egyptians against Julius Caesar's lust for a young Egyptian girl.
In the visual arts, her ancient depictions include Roman busts, paintings, and sculptures, cameo carvings and glass, Ptolemaic and Roman coinage, and reliefs. In Renaissance and Baroque art, she was the subject of many works, including operas, paintings, poetry, sculptures, and theatrical dramas. She has become a pop culture icon of Egyptomania since the Victorian era, and in modern times, Cleopatra has appeared in the applied and fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films, and brand images for commercial products.
The death of Cleopatra has been painted by many 19th century painters such as Hans Makart, Jean-Paul Rixens, Bordes de Lassalle, Juan Luna y Novicio, Reginald Arthur and John Collier, and before them by Guido Reni and other Baroque painters. Other 19th-century painters showed her majesty (John William Waterhouse) or her seductiveness (Lawrence Alma-Tadema). Also well-known is Alexandre Cabanel's 1887 painting of Cleopatra cruelly testing poisons on condemned slaves, while there was a lesser-known variation by Suzanne Daynes-Grassot, made in 1910, the same year as the film by Pathé Frères.
French postcard by A. Bergeret. Photo: Morinel, Nantes. Bergeret published a set of four postcards on the death of Cleopatra, a topic which has also been painted often by 19th-century painters. The Bergeret staging - almost tableau vivant-like - with the one uncovered leg and low cleavage suggests a kind of risqué image, while many painters depicted Cleopatra nude or semi-nude.
French postcard by A. Bergeret. Photo: Morinel, Nantes.
British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 105 M. Photo: Lizzie Caswall Smith. Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Gertrude Elliott in the title roles of G.B. Shaw's play 'Caesar and Cleopatra' (1899).
British postcard by The Philco Publishing Co., London, no. 3316 E. Photo: Bassano. Constance Collier as Cleopatra in the stage production Antony and Cleopatra (1906).
British postcard by J.J. Samuels, London, no. J.S.-2. Photo: Bassano. Constance Collier as Cleopatra and Hilda Moore in the stage production Antony and Cleopatra (1906).
British postcard by Percy Guttenberg, Manchester, no. 701. Photo: Percy Guttenberg. British stage actress Miss Darragh as Cleopatra. She played Cleopatra in William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra' at the Queen's Theatre in Manchester in 1908.
Italian postcard. Photo: Cines. Amleto Novelli and Giovanna Terribili-Gonzales in Marcantonio e Cleopatra / Antony and Cleopatra (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913).
German postcard by BKWI, no. 34. Photo: Cines. Cleopatra (Gianna Terribili Gonzales) enjoying herself in the Italian silent epic Marcantonio e Cleopatra / Antony and Cleopatra (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913). On the postcard is the German film title: Die Herrin des Nils (The Mistress of the Nile).
Spanish minicard in the series Intimidades cinematograficas, series I, no. 16 of 20. Caption: The modern Cleopatra. Nita Naldi in an intermezzo with the director in Lawful Larceny (Allan Dwan, 1923).
British postcard by Film Weekly. Photo: Paramount. Henry Wilcoxon as Mark Antony and Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).
Méliès, Cecil B. DeMille and Joseph Mankiewicz
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (70/69 BC – 10 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh. Cleopatra's legacy survives in ancient and modern works of art. Her life and death have been the subject of such classic plays as 'Antony and Cleopatra' by William Shakespeare and 'Caesar and Cleopatra' by G.B. Shaw.
Her life and death were also portrayed in many films. The first film version was probably the 1898 version by Georges Méliès. It was followed by the 1908 Vitagraph version with Florence Lawrence and the 1910 Pathé version, starring Madeleine Roch.
Memorable was the first sound version, Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934) with Claudette Colbert. The film, filled with DeMille's usual mixture of sin and sex, got five Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture, and Victor Milner won the award for Best Cinematography. Vivien Leigh portrayed her in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).
Best known is the Hollywood epic Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963) with Elizabeth Taylor. It achieved notoriety for its massive cost overruns and production troubles, which included changes in director and cast, a change of filming locale, sets that had to be constructed twice, lack of a firm shooting script, and personal scandal around co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
There were also parodies such as Carry on Cleo (Gerald Thomas, 1964) with Amanda Barrie, which was part of the British Carry On series. More recently, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopâtre (Alain Chabat, 2002) followed with Monica Bellucci as the Egyptian queen.
Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 2705. Photo: Paramount. Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra (Cecil B. DeMille, 1934).
Dutch postcard by HEMO. Photo: Eagle Lion. Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945). The film was not a great success.
Dutch postcard by Hemo. Photo: Eagle Lion. Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra (Gabriel Pascal, 1945).
French postcard in the Collection 'Portraits de Cinema' by Editions Admira, Aix-en-Provence & Chapman Collection / SNAP Photos / Cosmos, no. PHN 661. Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier in William Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra' (1951). In 1951, the play ran in repertory with G.B. Shaw's 'Caesar and Cleopatra' at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York.
Italian photo. Possibly Evi Maltagliati opposite Filippo Scelzo in 'Cesare' by Gioacchino Forzano (1939 or 1949).
Belgian postcard by SB (Uitgeverij Best), Antwerpen (Antwerp). Photo: Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963).
German postcard by ISV, no. A.104. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Elizabeth Taylor in the epic Cleopatra (Joseph Manckiewcz, 1963).
Italian poster postcard. Coll. Camillo Moscati, Gel Lo Vecchio. Totò in Totò e Cleopatra (Fernando Cerchio, 1963).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2655. Kenneth Williams as Julius Caesar and Amanda Barrie as Cleopatra in Carry On Cleo (Gerald Thomas, 1964), released in the GDR as Cleo, Liebe und Antike. It was the tenth in the series of the 31 Carry On films, produced by Peter Rogers and distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated.
The Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé organised the conference on 14 March in occasion of the exhibition, 'Antiquité et cinéma', which runs till 29 March 2025. In the book of the exhibition, Ivo Blom has written a chapter on the film Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914). A few postcards from his collection are on view in the exhibition. Both the exhibition and conference cover films of all times. A film programme on silent film & Antiquity runs at the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé until 8 April 2025. Watch the programme.
Text: Ivo Blom. Additional sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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