Antony and Cleopatra

Synopsis: Antony and Cleopatra directed by Charles Kent with Betty Kent (the director’s wife) as Cleopatra. The film was shot entirely in the studio, Vitagraph’s promotion describing the film as a ‘stupendous production, a fine picture of Roman pride and Eastern magnificence, elaborately staged, superbly acted’.
Country: United States
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Silent
Year of release: 1908
Recording date: 3 Nov 1908
Duration: 995 feet

Director

Cast

Charles Chapman	Mark Antony
Betty Kent	Cleopatra
William Phillips	Octavius Caesar
Paul Panzer	Lieutenant to Octavius Caesar (uncredited)

Notes: Ball notes that the cast identifications are tentative. IMDb credits Florence Lawrence as Cleopatra and Maurice Costello as Antony.

The Library of Congress holds only a fragment from the film - 33 ft. of sample frames from thirteen scenes. This material originally come to the Library in the form of a perforated paper roll submitted for copyright registration purposes, and was transferred onto 35mm film in the 1980s. The "truncated" format (a few frames from each shot/scene) was a common method of registering motion pictures for copyright in the early days. The film elements are listed in LC’s online catalogue as part of [VITAGRAPH PAPER PRINT FRAGMENTS. NO. 5].
Reviews: Ball, Robert Hamilton. Shakespeare on Silent Film: A Strange Eventful History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968 (pp47-8, 49,88,312).

Motion Picture World (7 November 1908).

SHAKESPEARE