Listen to this episode of the Movies We Dig podcast, featuring me talking about this film! https://www.movieswedig.com/podcast/episode-34-cleopatra-1970/

Written and directed by famed animator Osamu Tezuka with Eichi Yamamoto co-directing, this sci-fi/fantasy/history sex romp was a total box office bust. It was the second of three feature-length adult-themed films produced for the “Animarama” series by Mushi Productions and contributed directly to the company’s bankruptcy not long after its release.

It was released in the US in 1972 as Cleopatra, Queen of Sex by Xanadu Productions, which marketed the film as the first pornographic animated film to get an X rating. But the rating was Xanadu’s own creation (not bestowed by MPAA), nor was it the first X-rated cartoon (Fritz the Cat claimed that title by debuting a week before Cleopatra, Queen of Sex), and it wasn’t exactly pornographic. All of this meant that audiences were really confused and irritated by the film.

Summarizing this film is a challenge, but here is a bare-bones outline: Three humans decide to travel back in time to understand “the Cleopatra Plan” that aliens intend to deploy in order to destroy humanity. The trio disguise themselves as members of the Egyptian court and get involved with a group of Egyptian rebels who enlist Cleopatra in their plan to seduce Julius Caesar and murder him, and thereby overthrow Roman rule. The plan doesn’t work, however, as Cleopatra falls in love with Julius Caesar, who, after making her queen of Egypt, returns to Rome and is killed there. She goes on to fall in love with Mark Antony and to continue the plan by seducing Augustus, but this also fails because he is gay and uninterested in her. She commits suicide over her loss and failure, while the time travelers return to the future just in time to stop the aliens from using sex and seduction to take over the earth.

Needless to say, the plot of Cleopatra is extremely convoluted and has many more twists and turns than I’ve outlined here. (Animation historian Fred Patten has a wonderfully detailed summary of the film and its reception here and you can watch it in full with Spanish subtitles here). Sometimes it is dramatic, sometimes it is funny, and often it is disturbing, with graphic scenes of rape and physical violence. And while it does aim for historical accuracy at times, there are many deliberate moments of anachronism and general “WTF?” weirdness.  One highlight that I appreciated is the depiction of the assasination of Julius Caesar in the style of a kabuki drama.  Overall, the animation is great, as is the music — both have that distinctively 70s vibe that I love — and I think there is a lot more to unpack about this film in terms of what it was trying to do and how the figure of Cleopatra was perceived in Japanese culture during this period, but the whole affair is definitely one of the wackiest takes on Roman history that I’ve encountered in modern animation.

More: https://letsanime.blogspot.com/2015/11/at-movies.html

Tezuka’s Adult Features: “Cleopatra” (1970)

Director: Yury Prytkov.

An educational story of time travel: Kolya and Olya visit the ancient city of Syracuse, where they meet with the great methematician and inventor Archimedes. He shows them some of his wonderful inventions and then they work to repel an attack of the Romans, and then return back home safely.

A 30-minute made for TV movie starring Bill Cosby as Aesop, produced by Lorimar Productions. Live-action interspersed with animated segments featuring the stories “The Tortoise and the Eagle” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

In 1990-91, Cosby would play Aesop again in a series of six 30-minute films, each featuring one animated fable.

More: https://www.creighton.edu/aesop/artifacts/audiovisual/videocassettes/videocassetteseries/billcosbyasaesop/

This is the second in a series of five twenty-minute films based on Greek heroic mythology that were written by Aleksei Simukov and directed by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya between 1969 and 1974, at the end of her long animation career in the former Soviet Union (see also “Return from Olympus,” “Labyrinth: The Deeds of Theseus,” “Perseus” and “Prometheus”). They were produced by Russian state animation studio Soyuzmultfilm on behalf of the Ministry of Education and are considered the most important movies about Greek myth ever made in the USSR.

Plot summary: Two young boys happen upon an old man and wrecked ship on the shore. They imagine themselves sailing off for an adventure, and the old man tells them that this was the Argo and that he is Jason. He then recounts his journey in flashback, recalling the heroes who accompanied him, their encounter with the Symplegades, the Sirens, and — somewhat oddly — the Stymphalian birds, before they reach the kingdom of Aeetes and his daughter Medea, who helps him retrieve the golden fleece.

 The romantic connection between Jason and Medea is present but minimized here — she is instead fulfilling a prophecy through her aid of the hero. She is also depicted as a strong protagonist with quite a bit of agency. This image accorded well with the ideals of Soviet feminist ideology, which expected women to dedicate themselves to the betterment of the state through (their often masculine-coded) work, while also serving as the heroines of the home, making sacrifices for their families and creating a home-life that would “increase productivity and improve quality of work.” While we don’t see Medea in the guise of mother in this film, at the end the aged Jason does allude vaguely to their fraught future together when he responds to the two boys (who recall his two sons with her) when they ask, “What happened next?” by saying, “For me, Jason, there was no more ‘then’.” He then falls through the hull of the ship and dies, but not before offering a prayer on behalf of the Argo and restoring its divine protection for another generation. This dramatic turn is an allusion to his ignominious end, as he was struck by a rotting chunk of wood that fell from the ship, just as Medea prophesied after killing their sons. 

This is the last in a series of five twenty-minute films based on Greek heroic mythology that were written by Aleksei Simukov and directed by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya between 1969 and 1974, at the end of her long animation career in the former Soviet Union (see also “Return from Olympus,” “Argonauts,” “Labyrinth: The Deeds of Theseus,” and “Perseus”). They were produced by Russian state animation studio Soyuzmultfilm on behalf of the Ministry of Education and are considered the most important movies about Greek myth ever made in the USSR.

This is the fourth in a series of five twenty-minute films based on Greek heroic mythology that were written by Aleksei Simukov and directed by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya between 1969 and 1974, at the end of her long animation career in the former Soviet Union (see also “Return from Olympus,” “Argonauts,” “Labyrinth: The Deeds of Theseus,” and “Prometheus”). They were produced by Russian state animation studio Soyuzmultfilm on behalf of the Ministry of Education and are considered the most important movies about Greek myth ever made in the USSR.

This is the third in a series of five twenty-minute films based on Greek heroic mythology that were written by Aleksei Simukov and directed by Alexandra Snezhko-Blotskaya between 1969 and 1974, at the end of her long animation career in the former Soviet Union (see also “Return from Olympus,” “The Argonauts,”  “Perseus” and “Prometheus”). They were produced by Russian state animation studio Soyuzmultfilm on behalf of the Ministry of Education and are considered the most important movies about Greek myth ever made in the USSR.

This eight-minute Soviet production from 1976 by famed animator Fyodor Khitruk for Soyuzmultfilm transforms the story of Icarus from one of hubris and heedlessness into one of ingenuity and perseverance, as the hero keeps trying to find new ways to fly, in spite of the skepticism and narrowmindedness of the community elders (whose views are expressed in pithy Latin phrases). The motif of resistance to authority, which is so prevalent in 1970s animation, is on clear display here, as is Khitruk’s distinctive and imaginative artistic style. In the midst of the period of detente from the Cold War, “Icarus and the Wise Men” offers its audience a simple yet profound philosophical meditation on the ideas of freedom, creativity and daring in the face of cynicism and opposition.

Khitruk went on to direct another Classically-themed short in 1982 called “Olympians,” which is filled with imagery of the ancient games and which itself was influenced by the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

More: https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/252941/