Starting off with the overture, three minutes before the movie proper starts. Few movies are as notorious as Cleopatra; intended as a cheap quickie, to got completely out of control. Mankiewicz wanted to release it as two three-hour movies. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

It was premiered as a single four hour movie, but cut to three for general release. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

If you want to find out about the background, I recommend the documentary Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood. Part one: . #ClassicsTwitterMovie

Part two: #ClassicsTwitterMovie

I’m looking forward to this to find out what I think about this now – in the past I have said at different times that the first part is better than the second, and that the second is better than the first. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

Joseph L. Mankiewicz had previously worked with Taylor on Suddenly Last Summer. (His son Tom was a screenwriter, most famous for working on the Bonds between Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker.) #ClassicsTwitterMovie

He had also directed a film of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 1953 – not often mentioned in accounts of how he got the Cleopatra gig, but surely a factor, both in why he was chosen and certainly in why he agreed to do it. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

Todd-AO was a proprietary widescreen format developed in competition with Cinemascope. Co-developer of this was Mike Todd, who had been married to Elizabeth Taylor. After his death in a plane crash in 1958, Taylor owned the process, and insisted on its use. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

This opening scene is a reshoot, done in February of 1963, the last footage shot for the movie. #ClassicsTwitterMovie

A quick acknowledgement there of Caesar having his exploits recorded. #ClassicsTwitterMovie