Filmed in luscious Technicolor, and not lacking a singular B-movie charm, Serpent of the Nile fictionalizes the late years of Ptolemaic Egypt resorting to well-known historical and aesthetic clichés. The complex political intrigues that eventually led to the Roman conquest of Egypt at Octavian’s direction, and the mutual suicide of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony, are staged in the movie through a combination of low-budget battle sequences, stilted dialogue and interior mise-en-scène (on the sets previously built for William Dieterle’s biblical film Salome). Robert E. Kent’s screenplay favors the hackneyed romantic plot involving Cleopatra (played by Rhonda Fleming) and Mark Antony (Raymond Burr), once again depicting the Egyptian queen as a mischievous, scheming seductress and the Roman general as a man gradually deprived of any political agency; a man ultimately infatuated with the beauty and the riches of the exotic queen. The topic of exoticism is additionally illustrated in the film in a sort of made-up, mixed (ancient and modern) Eastern Mediterranean style, which can be noticed in the use of superimposed matte paintings, as well as in some remarkable set pieces, like the dancing scene in which Cleopatra entertains Mark Antony and her Roman companions lavishly.

Author: Samuel Fernández-Pichel