The Notorious Cleopatra (1970)

For a ’sexploitation’ picture, THE NOTORIOUS CLEOPATRA doesn’t really work as one. The little bits of comedy we do see are pretty inane asides to the camera in the style of “Laugh-In”, which thankfully are pretty much relegated to the first third of the picture. The sex scenes don’t work too well either, dragging on for 5-10 minutes at a stretch and featuring some uglies who should have been paid to stay clothed. The film would have probably worked better as a straight period piece, since surprisingly most of the cast are fairly decent in their roles. Rocco, although wooden as the Trojan Horse with his facial expressions, does the best among all the cast as Marc Antony. The film actually gets less comical as it rolls on, turning dead serious in the last 10 minutes! And most shocking of all, it actually seems to work better that way.