Caesar and Cleopatra is a 1945 film starring Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh, produced and directed by Gabriel Pascal from the 1901 play by George Bernard Shaw. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (John Bryan). Brian was one of several directors brought in to assist with the direction of the film at a late stage but, by then, most of the damage was done.

 

 

Filmed in Technicolor with lavish sets, the production was reported to be the most expensive film ever made in Britain at the time. Pascal ordered sand from Egypt to get the right cinematic color. It was described as a "box office stinker" at the time, and virtually ended Pascal's career. It was the first Shaw film made in color, and the last film version of a Shaw play during his lifetime. After Shaw's death in 1950 Pascal went on to produce one more Shaw film, the 1952 version of Androcles and the Lion.

Starring: Claude Rains, Vivian Leigh, Stewart Granger, Flora Robson, Francis L. Sullivan, Basil Sydney, Cecil Parker, and featuring a young man gaining his first screen role as a spear carrier, Roger Moore (Uncredited)

Brian, Claude Rains, Vivian Leigh and Gabriel Pascal pose for photograph - Photo courtesy of the BFI