Serpent of the Nile (1953)

Serpent of the Nile is a low-budget epic about Cleopatra, directed by William Castle and produced by Sam Katzman.

It opens with Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar, defeated in battle by Mark Antony. Lucilius (William Lundigan) is a serious-minded political zealot who wants to restore democracy. He’s on the side of Brutus and Cassius but once they’re dead he rather reluctantly agrees to serve Mark Antony.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, is determined to achieve an alliance with the strongest man in Rome and Mark Antony seems to fit the bill. She can offer him the gold he needs to achieve supreme power. In return (she hopes) she will be permitted to rule the world with him. She intends that eventually her son by Julius Caesar will rule the world.

Egypt is full of conspiracies and there are assassins everywhere. This is very confusing for poor Lucilius. He sees everything in terms of good vs evil. He soon decides that Cleopatra is evil. He had apparently loved her once but now he loves only Rome.

Mark Antony enjoys himself with Cleopatra in Alexandria, much to Lucilius’s disapproval (Lucilius is a man who disapproves of anything other than a fanatical devotion to duty).

Lucilius finds Alexandria to be a dangerous place. Cleopatra still carries a torch for him but she has chosen Antony because he seems to offer Egypt a better chance of survival as independent nation. She doesn’t see that she has much choice.

While Antony tarries with Cleopatra Octavian is building up his armies.

Robert E. Kent’s screenplay doesn’t bother with subtleties. Cleopatra is a queen so she must be wicked. Lucilius is a democrat so he must be the hero. Kent has managed to take a fascinating story and turn it into the plot of a second-rate western.

The one thing that really matters more than anything else in a movie about Cleopatra is the actress who plays her. Rhonda Fleming is just not in the same league as Claudette Colbert or Elizabeth Taylor. She doesn’t have Colbert’s overwhelming sexual allure. But she’s not bad. She’s beautiful and glamorous and looks reasonably exotic.

Raymond Burr is great fun as Mark Antony. He plays him as the bad guy in a gangster movie. Given that Rome was pretty much a gangster society that’s not a bad choice. He at least manages to make Mark Antony seem charismatic and dangerous. He also makes Antony a man of flesh and blood. He’s a bit of a rogue but we like the guy.

The big problem is William Lundigan as Lucilius. He’s awful. For the plot of the movie to work we have to believe that Cleopatra would be seriously torn between Lucilius and Mark Antony but nobody is going to believe for one second that a woman like Cleopatra would look twice at a dumb, uninteresting, self-righteous prig and bore like Lucilius. He has all the animal magnetism of a piece of soggy cardboard.

Lucilius is the hero but I found him to be a loathsome human being, a man who puts politics before people and will willingly betray love and friendship for the sake of abstract principles. He’s dull, humourless and without a shred of warmth or compassion. And like so many political zealots he always finds a way to rationalise his betrayals.

There is zero chemistry between Lundigan and Fleming. There is chemistry between Fleming and Burr, but that just serves to emphasise the ludicrousness of the film’s attempt to make us see Lucilius as a romantic rival.

Look out for Julie Newmar as the girl in the gold bikini (a decade before Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger).

The low budget is definitely a problem. I have no objections to the use of matte paintings but in this movie they’re just not very good. It’s unfair to criticise the movie for this. When you have a limited budget you can’t make an epic that is going to rival spectacular big-budget productions. William Castle does a fairly good job considering those limitations.

This is not an easy movie to find. There’s a Spanish DVD which includes the original English language version but the transfer isn’t great and it seems to be weirdly cropped. This is a movie that really needs a restoration and a Blu-Ray release.

Serpent of the Nile doesn’t quite make it. Rhonda Fleming’s acting is fine but she’s just not sufficiently mysterious, exotic or dangerous. Given the way the script demonises Cleopatra she needed to play her as a full-blown femme fatale.

The reason to see this movie is Raymond Burr. He really is a delight. Aside from that it’s moderately decent entertainment.