The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-20

IMS( WHEN I sat before the screen | WNW version of the long-heraided V William Fox production of 1 'CIeopatra," with the inimitable
 Miss Theda Bara as Egypts wiy
 queen, the Serpent of the Nile, who en-
 snared the hearts of men and made
 merry with her quips and jests, l made
 some little observations (not aloud, but ' just to my little self as l reveled in scene after scene of splendor and mag nificence, gorgeous effects and marEe
 lous illusions. Yes as I remarked be- fore, I said unto my little self:
 Miss Bara as Egypts queen, siren, ipolitic;an, and all-round trifler with men and kingdoms, and things, eclipses all
 the brilliant, thrilling marvellous back lgrounds with which the scenic artists have surrounded her. | Also I said unto my little self: If Egypt's queen, siren, politician and all-round trfler with men and kingdoms and things, didn't look like Miss Bara, her contemporaries were the losers, and Tiff she didn't dress like her, then she failed to take advantage of a warm and l pleasant climate.
 I For
 !, Be 1t known, Miss Bara rides through 1 her capital looking like an artists model about to start the days work, and furthermore, she goes a-calling on the le'court astrologer lucky court astrol- | oger) wearing barely enough to make | the trimming for an ordinary evening gown for a debutante
 Miss Bara's costumes, some 50 in num- l ber vary in the manner in which the | beads are put on, but after the first -eei | or two, who cares about the fashions Ill beads? Besides, everything is practice l ing War Economies nowadays, so why discriminate against beads? Cleopatra" is a production of stupen- dous moment, and well worth seeing; iL | Is a marvellous spectacle of -brillianey. superb effects, gorgeous scenery, and ] handsome settings.
 1 In the first place, It is produced on q perfectly mammoth scale, which means 1 that whole cities have been erected for l it's settings; in fact, Mr. Gordon Ed wards, who directed the picture and who l has directed all Miss Bara's pictures de
 luxe for MT. Fox, may be said to have | reconstructed a whole period of his- 1 tory
 | I recall very vividly last spring when
 I was in New Yorok making visit to
 the Fox studios, i'll search of an in
 terview' with the inimitable Miss Bara,
 and seeing the gorgeous settings for
 the first scenes of Cleopatra" which was just then being started. 1 Just to mention en passant few of 1.-the things that serve as a background for the moving events of the story. there | is the city of Alexandria, the Roman | Forum, the pyramids, and the Sphinx.
 Tn addition to these, there is a whole fleet I of ancient fffty-slavepower ships, and these ships engage in a big battle which l feet.
 l Of course, all of us film fans" are
 used to little things like mere miracles, | but it takes a lot of them to make us l Sit up and take notice and there are
 punches of t'em in Cleopatra" which
 are really marvellous to behold, and sat l isfy even the most exacting. | But ''the plays the thing and I'm sure you are anxious to know what the
 screen version of Cleopatra" is like especially all the Shakespeare fans to say the least of it, and I must ad-
 init that the scenario is engrossingly
 told; it is, a mixture of our beloved Mir | Shakespeare and history and fiction and the subordination of the spectacle to the characters is done with marvellous
 artistic poise and reverence for tradi- 1 ton.
 The scenario provides few big scenes" which after all is very clever
 because when the finale--the climax
 the one tremendous rousing thrilling, beautiful scene arrives the audience
 hasn't been surfeited with big scenes
 and climaxes earlier in the picture.
 And listen my good friends Shake