Cleopatra

Cleopatra (1934) is Cecil B. DeMille's historical melodrama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. A landmark of early sound Hollywood, it casts Claudette Colbert as the queen of Egypt, scheming between Rome and her own throne by leaning on one general, then the next.

First Julius Caesar (Warren William) arrives at her court, and Cleopatra charms him to keep Egypt safe under Rome's wing. Caesar falls to assassins — so the queen turns her spell on Mark Antony (Henry Wilcoxon), dazzling him with the spectacle of her barge, her banquets and her wardrobe. Private passion and imperial politics collide, and it all ends exactly where the history books say it must.

DeMille shot the whole thing as pageant: the celebrated barge sequence, Art Deco standing in for archaeology, Travis Banton's costumes pushing right up against the new Hays Code. Cinematographer Victor Milner took home an Oscar for the look of it. The film is very much of its era — grand, stagey, overheated — yet it set the template every later screen Cleopatra would follow, Elizabeth Taylor included. For lovers of old Hollywood and the sword-and-sandal style, it's essential. Stream Cleopatra (1934) online on iFILM.