Film and Television Versions of The Play
Caesar and Cleopatra was the basis for a lavish 1945 motion picture starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh and produced by Gabriel Pascal. Shaw collaborated closely on this production. See Caesar and Cleopatra (1945 film).
After seeing part of the filming of the movie at Denham Studios in London, Shaw remarked, "What scope! What limitless possibilities!... Here you have the whole world to play with!"
There have also been two major television productions of the play. The first was in 1956, produced as part of the anthology series Producers' Showcase, on NBC. It starred Claire Bloom, Cedric Hardwicke, Farley Granger, Jack Hawkins and Judith Anderson. The second version, shown in 1976, was also telecast by NBC, and starred Geneviève Bujold, Alec Guinness, Clive Francis, Margaret Courtenay, and Iain Cuthbertson. It was telecast on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
There has also been an audio adaptation of the play, produced on Caedmon Records, starring Max Adrian as "Caesar", Claire Bloom as "Cleopatra" and Judith Anderson as "Ftatateeta".
The 2008 Stratford Festival production starring Christopher Plummer in the role of Caesar, and Nikki M. James as Cleopatra was shown in very limited release in cinemas on January 31, 2009. It was subsequently shown on Bravo in Canada and released on a DVD, which is available from the Festival.
Read more about this topic: Caesar And Cleopatra (play)
Famous quotes containing the words film, television, versions and/or play:
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
—Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)
“The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)