Today would have been the 92nd birthday of one of the greatest film stars of all time, Elizabeth Taylor!

Today’s scene that I love comes from 1963’s Cleopatra.  Cleopatra is often dismissed as the film that nearly bankrupted a studio but it’s enjoyable if you’re in the right mood and you’ve got four hours of free time.  Elizabeth Taylor may not have been a historically accurate Cleopatra but who cares?  It seems appropriate that the most glamorous woman of what was then the modern world played the most glamorous woman of the ancient world.

In this scene, Cleopatra arrives in Rome with all of the fanfare befitting the world’s most beautiful and powerful woman.  Keep in mind that this scene was done in the days before CGI and — *shudder* — AI.  Every costume was real.  Every extra was real.  Everything about this scene was real.