Two Nights with Cleopatra

Silly Italian style comedy, leading by Albert Sordi's self humor, who has a true priceless action as always, he brings the laughs and Sophia Loren brings the voluptuous beauty, never has a perfect Cleopatra in cinema like her, evil and heartless, cold as hell and gorgeous, some scenes is a real gem, like at Dungeon where Sordi has a terrific acting, also an original and imaginative scene when Sordi describes your adventure to save a beauty woman and get a Cleopatra's ring, simply hilarious, maybe it's foolish, but never bored nobody, by the way the official DVD release in Brazil had 70 minutes only, then eight minutes are missing for the original movie, thus for Loren and Sordi 6 out 10!!

Resume:

First watch: 1989 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 6

This one can't seem to make up its mind whether to be a vehicle for Italian comic Alberto Sordi or a peplum spoof, perhaps the first in the genre; I tend to find Sordi's brand of humor in this early stage overbearing – as for the latter, CARRY ON CLEO (1964; which I watched in January) is far superior!

Lovely Sophia Loren (not yet the international star, she featured in a famous bare-breasted black-and-white publicity still for this very film!) has a dual role as the conniving Cleopatra and a lookalike slave, who is made to pass for her when she absents herself to visit Marc Anthony (played by peplum regular Ettore Manni). Sordi is an Egyptian merchant who contrives to (literally) win a place as a personal guardian to the Queen of the Nile: the trouble is that she's in the habit of taking these as lovers and then have them killed!; the title, then, refers to Sordi's having trysts with both of Loren's characters (comforting the despairing slave while aggravating the no-nonsense ruler!). By the way, "Euro-Cult" stalwart Paul Muller is Cleopatra's villainous adviser.

For the record, director Mattoli helmed several Toto' vehicles around this same time; besides, the script was co-written by Ettore Scola (later a top director in his own right) – while Giuseppe Colizzi, a future Spaghetti Western specialist, served here as production manager. Incidentally, I had resisted renting this on DVD in a dubbed version…but, when it eventually turned up on Italian TV, the battered print used featured a number of jump cuts – so that the film ended up being even shorter than its already modest 78 minutes!

Okay, this movie is certainly not one of the best Italian epics of the time. However it certainly isn't either one of the horrible sword and sandal of the "Gli Schiavi piu forti del mondo" reputation. The sets and the costumes are very good, Sophia Loren is exquisite, Alberto Sordi looks bloody stupid. I did not manage to understand exactly what was going on, but still it was great fun watching it. I know there was Cleo who used to spend nights with soldiers and poison them the following morning; then one night she wanted to go and meet Mark Anthony and leaves a look alike back at the palace. A silly officer falls in love with her, mistaking her for Cleo. Cloe comes back from her night-time romp and (naturally) does not recognise the officer who swears will love her to death. Somehow someone attempts to murder the queen, but fails. I think Sordi kills the queen at the end by banging her head to a wall, but it is not clear what happens. He manages to escape with the look-alike. Understood? Anyway, Sophia Loren here is at her sexiest and funniest - she manages to make people laugh without acting silly like Sordi - it is an art in itself. Certainly not a memorable film, but still worth seeing just for kicks.