| Two Nights with Cleopatra | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Mario Mattoli |
| Written by | Ruggero Maccari Ettore Scola |
| Produced by | Giuseppe Colizzi |
| Starring | Sophia Loren Alberto Sordi |
| Cinematography | Riccardo Pallottini |
| Edited by | Renato Cinquini |
| Music by | Armando Trovajoli |
Release date |
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Running time | 78 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Two Nights with Cleopatra (Italian : Due notti con Cleopatra) is a 1954 Italian comedy film directed by Mario Mattoli and starring Sophia Loren. [1]
Cesare, a Roman soldier, comes to Alexandria to serve in the army staff of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Cleopatra is a beautiful woman, able to charm anyone, and is the wife of Emperor Mark Antony, but when he is not in the city, she prefers to spend the night with one or another of his soldiers, whom she will then have killed the next day with poison.
When Mark Antony comes back to Alexandria to fight a war, Cleopatra visits him secretly while her place at the palace is taken by Nisca, a girl who is so like her she can pass as her double, except for being blonde. It turns out that on one of the evenings on which Cleopatra has been swapped for her double, Cesare fails to notice this. Unaware of the exchange, Cesare spends the night with the girl who proves to be very fragile and sad.
The next night Cesare is arrested for trying to hurt Cleopatra (the real one) but in reality the man just wanted to say hello. Intrigued by the fact that Cesare wears a ring identical to hers, Cleopatra makes him free and offers to spend the night with him, warning him that the next day he will die. Cesare, however, manages to get drunk and to free the "queen" Nisca, locked up in prison. The film ends with the two fleeing from Alexandria.
Cleopatra VII Philopator was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC, and its last active ruler. A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the second to last Hellenistic state and the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander. Her native language was Koine Greek, and she was the only Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.
Ptolemy XV Caesar, nicknamed Caesarion, was the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, reigning with his mother Cleopatra from 2 September 44 BC until her death by 12 August 30 BC, then as sole ruler until his death was ordered by Octavian.
Ptolemy XVI Philadelphus Antonius was a Ptolemaic prince and was the youngest and fourth child of Greek Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and her third with Roman Triumvir Mark Antony.
Two Women is a 1960 war drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica from a screenplay by Cesare Zavattini and De Sica, based on the novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown and Raf Vallone. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The story is fictional, but based on actual events of 1944 in Rome and rural Lazio, during the Marocchinate.
Marriage Italian Style is a 1964 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica, starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, and Vito Moricone.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto, commonly known as Giulio Cesare, is a dramma per musica in three acts composed by George Frideric Handel for the Royal Academy of Music in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani, which had been set to music by Antonio Sartorio (1676). The opera was a success at its first performances, was frequently revived by Handel in his subsequent opera seasons and is now one of the most often performed Baroque operas.
Arabian Nights is a 1974 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Its original Italian title is Il fiore delle mille e una notte, which means The Flower of the One Thousand and One Nights.
The War of Actium was the last civil war of the Roman Republic, fought between Mark Antony and Octavian. In 32 BC, Octavian convinced the Roman Senate to declare war on the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Her lover and ally Mark Antony, who was Octavian's rival, gave his support for her cause. Forty-percent of the Roman Senate, together with both consuls, left Rome to join the war on Antony's side. After a decisive victory for Octavian at the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra and Antony withdrew to Alexandria, where Octavian besieged the city until both Antony and Cleopatra were forced to commit suicide.
Cleopatra's Night is a short opera in two acts by American composer Henry Kimball Hadley. Its libretto is by Alice Leal Pollock based on the 1838 short story "One of Cleopatra's Nights" by French author Théophile Gautier. The opera premiered at the Metropolitan Opera on January 31, 1920. The opera was revived the following season, and was broadcast on NBC radio in 1929.
The Cleopatras is a 1983 BBC Television eight-part historical drama serial. Written by Philip Mackie, it is set in Ancient Egypt during the latter part of the Ptolemaic Dynasty with an emphasis on the Cleopatras. Intended to be the I, Claudius of the 1980s, The Cleopatras met with a decidedly mixed critical reaction. It was regarded and portrayed as a gaudy farce.
Cleopatra is a 1963 American epic historical drama film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, with a screenplay adapted by Mankiewicz, Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Buchman from the 1957 book The Life and Times of Cleopatra by Carlo Maria Franzero, and from histories by Plutarch, Suetonius, and Appian. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor in the eponymous role. Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, and Martin Landau are featured in supporting roles. It chronicles the struggles of Cleopatra, the young queen of Egypt, to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.
Two Women is a 1957 Italian-language novel by Alberto Moravia. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her teenaged daughter from the horrors of war. When both are raped, the daughter suffers a nervous breakdown.
Cleopatra is a 1999 miniseries adaptation of Margaret George's 1997 historical fiction novel The Memoirs of Cleopatra. Produced by Hallmark Entertainment, it stars Leonor Varela as the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, Timothy Dalton as Julius Caesar, Billy Zane as Mark Antony, Rupert Graves as Octavius, Sean Pertwee as Brutus and Bruce Payne as Cassius. Cleopatra was shown first on the ABC television network in two parts on two consecutive evenings in May 1999 and then released on videotape and DVD. Judy Farr, Martin Hitchcock and Frank Walsh were nominated for an Emmy in 1999 for outstanding art direction for a miniseries or a movie for their work on Cleopatra.
The death of Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, occurred on either 10 or 12 August, 30 BC, in Alexandria, when she was 39 years old. According to popular belief, Cleopatra killed herself by allowing an asp to bite her, but for the Roman-era writers Strabo, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio, Cleopatra poisoned herself using either a toxic ointment or by introducing the poison with a sharp implement such as a hairpin. Modern scholars debate the validity of ancient reports involving snakebites as the cause of death and if she was murdered or not. Some academics hypothesize that her Roman political rival Octavian forced her to kill herself in a manner of her choosing. The location of Cleopatra's tomb is unknown. It was recorded that Octavian allowed for her and her husband, the Roman politician and general Mark Antony, who stabbed himself with a sword, to be buried together properly.
Boccaccio '70 is a 1962 comedy anthology film directed by Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli and Luchino Visconti from an idea by Cesare Zavattini. It consists of four episodes, each by one of the directors, all about a different aspect of morality and love in modern times in the style of Giovanni Boccaccio.
One of Cleopatra's Nights is a historical short story by the French writer Théophile Gautier, first published as a six-part serial from November 29-December 6 1838 in La Presse. It relates an imagined romantic incident in the life of the Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII. The story was translated into English together with other fantastic tales of Gautier by Lafcadio Hearn for the collection One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances, published by Richard Worthington in 1882.
Legions of the Nile is an Eastmancolor 1959 Italian-French-Spanish historical epic adventure film written and directed by Vittorio Cottafavi.
The reign of Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt began with the death of her father, the ruling pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes, by March 51 BC. It ended with her death on 10 or 12 August 30 BC. Following the reign of Cleopatra, the country of Egypt was transformed into a province of the Roman Empire and the Hellenistic period came to an end. During her reign she ruled Egypt and other territories as an absolute monarch, in the tradition of the Ptolemaic dynasty's founder Ptolemy I Soter as well as Alexander the Great of Macedon, who captured Egypt from the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
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