The Forum is being dismantled, Cleopatra╒s palace is littered with empty lunchboxes, and Caesar╒s war galley is lying off Ischia amid the flotsam of the Battle of Actium. Another couple of hours╒ shooting tomorrow in the studios at Cinecitta and ╥Cleopatra╙ will be finished.
As far as the Romans are concerned this is definitely good news. Some thousands of film extras are going to be looking for work; the ╥paparazzi╙ (freelance press photographers), who have lived on the gossipy backwash of the production for nearly a year, will have to find new targets; and the philanthropist who let his villa to Elizabeth Taylor for ú1,000 a month may have to lower his sights a little. But Rome as a whole has long since decided that it can get along without ╥Cleopatra,╙ and it is two or three months now since a Roman daily carried the tired headline ╥Basta con Liz (╥Enough of Liz╙).
The Mostest
Miss Taylor, who is now on overtime ╤ $3,000 per working day on top of the flat $1 million which her original contract provided for ╤ is understood to have no immediate plans, whether professional or matrimonial. Joe Mankiewicz, the director, and Walter Wanger, the producer, who must be the world╒s two most relieved men, still have several months╒ work ahead of them before ╥Cleopatra╙ is in final shape to storm the world╒s box offices.
The publicity department of Twentieth Century-Fox, which is never shy of emphasis, says that besides being the biggest, greatest, most expensive picture in film history, ╥Cleopatra╙ will also be the surest moneymaker ╤ which means that it will be around for some time, since it has to make 12 or 13 million pounds to break even.
Besides rebuilding the Forum, Mr Mankiewicz and his boys put together a very nice mock-up of Cleopatra╒s palace in Alexandria, siting it for the sake of convenience a little way down the coast from Rome on an estate belonging to Prince Borghese. (The Prince can safely be assumed not to have lost on the deal, and there might be a tip here for some of our English aristocrats who are still having their flowerbeds trampled every weekend for a few miserable halfcrowns.)
Eye on the Pyramids
The script also called for a scene in the Egyptian desert, and there is some talk of sending a task force down to shoot it (President Nasser is said to have insured the Pyramids just in case), since surprisingly enough nobody seems to have thought of flying the sand up to Rome instead.
According to the company╒s production notes, the Forum and Cleopatra╒s palace used up enough steel scaffolding to stretch the 400 miles from Rome to Milan. Ten thousand extras take part in the single scene which shows Cleopatra╒s entry into Rome, and the dress Miss Taylor wears in this scene cost $6,500. The film╒s armoury includes 15,000 bows and quivers of arrows and 10,000 spears. Miss Taylor wears 30 wigs ╤ presumably not all at once, although nothing is impossible ╤ and I calculate that she will make enough out of ╥Cleopatra╙ to pay my salary for 200 years.
