A Queen for Caesar

There is a great deal of palace intrigue and skullduggery going on about Cleopatra and her arch-rival brother Ptolemy. Some excitement is generated when the queen is imprisoned and a devoted lovestruck soldier (Giorgio Ardisson) risks his life to free her. After several perilous shifts in the power struggle, the film ends at that entrancing legendary moment when she is smuggled into Caesar's presence rolled in a carpet. Julius (played by a much too young Gordon Scott in a brief cameo role) is bemused.

A QUEEN FOR CAESAR is a plodding peplum adventure charting the early life and times of one Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, forever caught up in the power struggles of her bother, her courtiers, the Roman Empire, and the various soldiers and generals in her employ. What should be a lavish and spectacle-filled adventure turns out to be a low-budget effort that consists of various characters jawing in the most yawn-worthy way.

Pascale Petit makes for an attractive and distinctive-looking Cleopatra, but even Amanda Barrie did a better job in CARRY ON CLEO. The story never seems to get beyond having Cleopatra at the mercy of various guys, some of them good, some of them bad, and being imprisoned. The power struggles are dealt with in the most rote way imaginable and the presence of genre regulars like Rik Battaglia and George Ardisson does nothing to lift the spirits. Watch out for Gordon Scott who appears late in the story as a miscast Caesar.

Pascale Petit did never become a big star in her native France although the late fifties provide her with her best part in Marcel Carné ' s" Les Tricheurs".

Her Cleopatra is more comic strip stuff than historical drama (although unfairly underrated ,Mankiewicz' s magnum opus has no contenders ) ,but as pure entertainment , not to be taken seriously , it's not worse than the average sword-and -sandal flick :muscle man Gordon Scott (later a secret agent) is completely miscast ,being too young (and Cesar was bald!),but as he only appears late in the movie ,it does not matter ;It's actually George Ardisson (himself a sword and sandal habitué ,later a secret agent too) who plays Cleo's attentive escort and whose character was invented from start to finish ).

The screenplay often verges on tongue in chick ,probably the best way to deal with such a far-fetched story.

Pascale Petit plays the young Cleopatra who challenges her brother for the throne of Egypt. They both seek Roman allies to further their cause. Cleopatra "seduces" Julius Caesar, (Gordon Scott) by appearing nude in front of him. She is rolled up in a carpet and rolls out of it at Gordon Scott's feet. There were 2 endings filmed for this final scene, one with clothes on and one naked. Most versions show the clothed version but there are copies of the nude one floating around and on Y/T. The distributor in the UK released the movie in 1962 and didn't realize that they had sent out the nude version to video stores. They then had to rush around and replace those copies with the fully clothed version. You can only see the bare back of the gorgeous Pascale Petit but it is well worth looking for. (There is a photo of her nude in the IMDB gallery attached to this posting). Geogio Ardisson does most of the action throughout the movie and Gordon Scott is only in that one final scene.

As a dedicated fan of dubbed 1960s European costume historical adventures, I went into A QUEEN FOR CAESAR with limited expectations, expecting strong performances from such a good cast, but not much else. Boy, was I thrown a curve! First of all, as the other review noted, the entire film takes place BEFORE Cleopatra's time with Caesar and Antony. We begin with Cleo and her nerdy, immature, arrogant brother Ptolameous, who sounds like he is being voiced (in the English dubbed version) by the fifteen year old Sal Mineo!! We also meet a Roman poet who helps Cleopatra; the military leader Pompeius (well-played by Akim Tamiroff), who lusts after Cleopatra and forces her to use her wiles against him to get what she wants; and her boyfriend Achillas, played by the reliable Georges/Giorgio Ardisson. Cleopatra is played by French actress Pascale Petit, who reminds me of a less buxom Jayne Mansfield and who does a wonderful job of being playful yet strong yet vulnerable, which is just what this character is at this point in her rise. As a Gordon Scott fan, I was anxious to see him as Caesar (by the way, I don't think he's too young for the role--he's in his late thirties at least, and he has a commanding presence, so he convinced ME that he could lead an empire and destroy his rivals!), but Caesar is only in the final third of the film, and Scott correctly received "guest star" billing at the end of the credits. I was not familiar with Cleopatra's history (assuming this film is historically accurate), so the final scene came out of the blue for me and was quite outrageous. My head was spinning for a while after a "THE END" credit came on the screen. On my copy of this film, the direction was credited solely to "V. Tourjansky"--Piero Pierotti was not mentioned. As 1960s historical dramas go, I must rate this as well above average. It may not have epic battles or grandiose court scenes, but I was never sure what direction it would go in, and each character was distinctive and full of little quirks that put the film well out of the realm of the average. It took me many years to find a copy of this, but I'm glad I did. I'll have to dig out some of the other films I have that star Pascale Petit--CODE NAME JAGUAR with Ray Danton, and FIND A PLACE TO DIE with Jeffrey Hunter. She is excellent and I can imagine her in a wide variety of roles. Recommended!!