"Cleopatra" as directed by Alfred Hitchcock

From the 'Total Film's 100 Top Directors' thread:

The Four Dot Elipsis: "Just learned that Walter Wanger approached Hitchcock to direct Cleopatra before Mamoulian was (initially) signed.

That would have been something.}


Nevermind: "Omigod, yeah, that snake would have been the size of Nagini and jumped from behind a door.

We should do a thread: "Cleopatra" as directed by Alfred Hitchcock...Cleo would be blonde for starters."


John Wesley Downey: "Yes, Cleopatra would have been blonde. And she might have been killed off in the bath, 40 minutes into the film, for the shock value! wink I wonder what the MacGuffin would have been in Cleopatra? This has really set my mind on fire.

This could become a new fun internet sport: Hitchcock's version of the The Searchers, Hitchcock's version of Lawrence of Arabia, Hitchcock - can you imagine the Hitchcock version of the Empire Strikes Back? The possibilities are endless for Hitchcock "re-imagining" of other people's material."


Well, okay, then!

Hitchcock's version of "Cleopatra".

Cleopatra: Grace Kelly
Ceasar: Cary Grant
Antony: Sean Connery

 

You would have got a shorter, much more visually involving film for sure. Hitchcock passed because it didn't really seem like his kind of thing (wise decision).

In Mankiewicz, however, Wanger found a kindred spirit who sought not to curb the troubled production, but to expand it. Of course, Mankiewicz was rewriting the script as he went, something that Hitchcock wouldn't have done.

I can tell you that Hitch wouldn't have indulged all of Taylor's whining and demanding. Then again, he wouldn't have used her at all.

Maybe Rod Taylor as Antony might have been a natural choice.

Just as long as we didn't get John Gavin as Caesar. Again.

 

He would have story-boarded the lot.

 

Here's a couple of fun concepts: if Hitchcock directed Cleopatra, where would his requisite brief cameo appear?

And what would a Bernard Hermann score for Cleopatra sound like?

 

One of the nubians pulling Cleopatra into Rome, surely.

A Bernard Herrmann score for anything is usually awesome. His score for The Egyptian might be comparable, but I've never heard it.

In fact, I'm sure choice of composer would have been one of the very few things that Hitch would have had complete control over. Alex North was picked purely because Christopher Mankiewicz had liked his work on Spartacus and recommended him to his father.

 

One of the nubians pulling Cleopatra into Rome, surely.

Good idea!

 

A plebeian.