Serpent of the Nile is a 1953

1953 in film

The year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...

 low budget Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 historical adventure film

Adventure film

Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....

 produced by Sam Katzman

Sam Katzman

Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry...

 and directed by William Castle

William Castle

William Castle was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Castle was known for directing films with many gimmicks which were ambitiously promoted, despite being reasonably low budget B-movies....

. The film starred Rhonda Fleming

Rhonda Fleming

Rhonda Fleming , is an American film and television actress.She acted in more than 40 films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses of her day...

, Raymond Burr

Raymond Burr

Raymond William Stacey Burr was a Canadian actor, primarily known for his title roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside. His early acting career included roles on Broadway, radio, television and in film, usually as the villain...

, William Lundigan

William Lundigan

William Lundigan was an American film actor. His films include Dodge City , The Fighting 69th , The Sea Hawk , Santa Fe Trail , Dishonored Lady , Pinky , Love Nest with Marilyn Monroe, The House on Telegraph Hill , I'd Climb the Highest Mountain and Inferno...

 and Michael Ansara

Michael Ansara

Michael Ansara is a Syrian-born American stage, screen, and voice actor best known for his portrayal of Cochise in the American television series Broken Arrow, Kane in the 1979-81 series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Commander Kang on three different Star Trek TV series.- Early life and...

. In an uncredited role, actress Julie Newmar

Julie Newmar

Julie Newmar is an American actress, dancer and singer. Her most famous role is Catwoman in the Batman television series.-Early life:...

 appears as an exotic dancer clad only in gold paint.

Plot

The film opens in 44 BC, just after the assassination of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, and tells the story of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (Fleming) and her relationship with the Roman general Mark Anthony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...

 (Burr) from that time until their mutual suicide in 31 BC. It also stars William Lundigan as Lucilius

Lucilius

Lucilius is the nomen of the gens Lucilia of ancient Rome.*Gaius Lucilius, satirist 2nd century BC. Lucilius was credited by Horace and others with originating the genre of satire.*Lucilius Junior, friend and correspondent of the younger Seneca....

 and Michael Fox as Octavius

Octavius

Octavius or Eudaf Hen is a figure of Welsh tradition. He is remembered as a King of the Britons and the father of Elen Luyddog and Conan Meriadoc in sources such as the Welsh prose tale The Dream of Macsen and Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae...

.

Production

The film had a very low budget. It was shot on the sets left over from Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

's Salome

Salome (1953 film)

Salome is a Biblical epic film made in Technicolor by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by William Dieterle and produced by Buddy Adler from a screenplay by Harry Kleiner and Jesse Lasky Jr. The music score was by George Duning, the dance music by Daniele Amfitheatrof and the cinematography by...

. One sequence depicts a chariot

Chariot

The chariot is a type of horse carriage used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Ox carts, proto-chariots, were built by the Proto-Indo-Europeans and also built in Mesopotamia as early as 3000 BC. The original horse chariot was a fast, light, open, two wheeled...

 racing through the sands of Egypt towards a sand dune in the distance, behind which looms a pyramid. It is extremely obvious that this composition is a matte shot

Matte (filmmaking)

Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image with a background image . In this case, the matte is the background painting...

: the pyramid in the background is a superimposed painting, with the sand dune concealing the join between the live action and the matte. Elsewhere in the film, Rhonda Fleming as Cleopatra is clearly wearing a "bullet bra" of the style that was fashionable in the 1950s.