Mark Damon plays the leader of a desert tribe in 1st-century-B.C. Egypt. Angered by the corrupt rule of the Roman governor, he leads a revolt against this governor, even though he's become romantically involved with the governor's daughter whom he holds hostage.
Damon played in a few of these "Sword & Sandal" movies but his good looks had a softness to them which kept him from becoming a truly-persuasive action hero. His upper teeth also seemed a bit too-widely spaced for one of those Cinemascope smiles, but unlike Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, and other stars of this genre, he had hair on his chest! (His torso is put on display here when he kneels down, hugs a stone altar, and is given a lashing across his bare back by horsemen wielding whips. This flogging ranks 23rd in the book "Lash! The 100 Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")
Fans of this kind of movie will find the usual array of battles, intrigue, romance, colorful costumes, gaudy sets, comic-book dialog, etc. What puts "Son of Cleopatra" a bit apart from the others are some impressive desert tableaux of armies marching across desert scenery. It may not match "Lawrence of Arabia," but all that sand and sky still looks pretty impressive.
One note: the movie's script seems to forget that Cleopatra was not Egyptian but was actually Greek.
Damon played in a few of these "Sword & Sandal" movies but his good looks had a softness to them which kept him from becoming a truly-persuasive action hero. His upper teeth also seemed a bit too-widely spaced for one of those Cinemascope smiles, but unlike Steve Reeves, Gordon Scott, and other stars of this genre, he had hair on his chest! (His torso is put on display here when he kneels down, hugs a stone altar, and is given a lashing across his bare back by horsemen wielding whips. This flogging ranks 23rd in the book "Lash! The 100 Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.")
Fans of this kind of movie will find the usual array of battles, intrigue, romance, colorful costumes, gaudy sets, comic-book dialog, etc. What puts "Son of Cleopatra" a bit apart from the others are some impressive desert tableaux of armies marching across desert scenery. It may not match "Lawrence of Arabia," but all that sand and sky still looks pretty impressive.
One note: the movie's script seems to forget that Cleopatra was not Egyptian but was actually Greek.