London Slog

The Plot Thickens

TCM Podcasts

Tv & Film, Film History

4.8 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

20th Century Fox pays Elizabeth Taylor a record-breaking salary to play Cleopatra, then tries to save money by filming the movie in England. That turns out to be a disastrous decision. The weather doesn’t agree with Liz, who suffers one health problem after another, delaying production for months. Fox then faces the question: pull the plug on this movie... or fire the director and find someone new to save the picture? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Please note, this podcast series contains mentions of suicide and domestic violence.
0:05.3	My great uncle, my grandfather's brother, lived in a farmhouse in upstate New York,
0:10.6	about an hour from the city. Joe made movies, wrote, and directed them. I was young when he
0:16.4	was still alive, but I do remember one thing clearly. His was four Oscars sitting out on his fireplace mantle.
0:24.4	Joe was a seriously big deal in Hollywood during the 1940s and 50s.
0:29.5	Uh, hello, uh, hello cousin.
0:31.6	Hello, cousin.
0:32.8	Alex Bankewitz is Joe's daughter.
0:34.8	Good to see you.
0:36.4	You as well.
0:38.3	Where are you? Alex is my age. She grew up in that farmhouse with the Oscars and with other reminders of Joe's
0:45.3	movies.
0:46.3	Upstairs in the house there was a corridor lined with posters of all of the movies that he
0:52.3	directed.
0:53.3	And he directed 20 films and there were 19 posters.
0:55.9	Right.
0:56.7	Yeah.
0:57.7	The one poster Joe did not hang was for a movie he directed called Cleopatra.
1:04.4	Cleopatra was the Voldemort of my childhood.
1:08.2	I mean, it was truly, you know, the thing that shall not be named.
1:16.2	Cleopatra took three years to make.
1:18.7	It starred Elizabeth Taylor, the most famous actress in the world.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TCM Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TCM Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.