News Flash: Rex Harrison knocked off by Archie Bunker!
It's obvious that Harrison didn't take himself too seriously all of the time here. It's rather bizarre having these two big stars, since it's clear that one of them is going to get knocked off sooner rather than later, yet, by being big stars, both of them have to have some amount of screen time. No doubt that's some of the reason the film is as long as it is; it takes two hours for Harrison to get knocked off, and about 75 minutes before Burton even shows up.
Taylor, of course, gets all the screen time (she was paid a million - in 1963 dollars - to appear in the picture), and delivers what is a rather odd performance. Basically, something like this makes you wonder if she is really just a one-note performer; she doesn't sound much different from her character in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. She has the same dismissive vulgarity which made more sense in that film.
Julius Caesar gets knocked off, of course, by a whole bunch of angry senators, including one very suspicious looking fellow who we've seen often on '70's television. Why, it's Archie Bunker himself, dramatically delivering the first blow to Rex Harrison. Carroll O'Connor is one of the cast of thousands, although he only manages to get a few lines in before being executed, along with the other senators, off-screen.
I bought Cleopatra at the local Zellers store (for a cheap price, of course), fully expecting everything that I've just mentioned. This film is, after all, notorious, and ought to be seen as evidence of Hollywood at its most bloated.
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