Set of 3 photos - CESAR AND CLEOPATRA - Lot 56

Set of 3 photos - CESAR AND CLEOPATRA Vivien Leigh, Claude Rains, and author George B. Shaw, during the filming of Gabriel Pascal’s movie, 1945. 3 photos, vintage silver gelatin prints, labeled (with tags) on two of the backs, stamped on one and annotated on two. Sizes range from 15.2 x 20.7 cm to 24 x 19.3 cm. Note: Taken around the time of the filming of Gabriel Pascal’s *Caesar and Cleopatra* in 1945, these photographs bear witness to the spectacular ambition of one of the great postwar British productions. Inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s play, the film blends ancient splendor, theatricality, and visual sophistication in a monumental recreation of ancient Egypt and Rome. The presence of Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains lends the film a dramatic elegance characteristic of the great historical cinema of the 1940s. One of the images, showing George Bernard Shaw himself on set, also highlights the project’s literary significance and the close connection between theater and cinema in this adaptation. Vivien Leigh portrays a Cleopatra who is at once sensual, ironic, and strong-willed, building on the mythical aura she had acquired a few years earlier with *Gone with the Wind*. These vintage silver gelatin prints thus preserve all the visual richness and heritage value of a film that has become emblematic of the grand historical epics produced during the golden age of British cinema.