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An important film in several respects, Cleopatra should be viewed within the limitations of its era, when filmmaking was still taking its first steps. Helen Gardner's production company, The Helen Gardner Picture Players, was reportedly the first company of its kind, filming its product on locations near the Hudson River. (Egypt never looked this lush in any other movie about the Queen of the Nile.) Gardner, a former pantomimist who chose a career in films (with her husband, Charles Gaskill, directing) over one in theater, is an expressive actress, capable of playing the seductress as well as the vulnerable woman who has been wronged. That's a significant element in a film that may seem static to contemporary eyes. The camera never moves, there are no closeups or cuts to parallel action. Gardner took the chance that a film of this length, virtually unheard of at the time, would hold the attention of audiences. It wasn't until three years later that D.W. Griffith would bring a sense of dynamics to telling a story onscreen with The Birth of a Nation. But Cleopatra, with its color tinting and lavish costumes, offers it own set of pleasures.