Review Causes Drop In Shares

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30157, 14 June 1963, Page 11

Review Causes Drop In Shares

(N Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK June 13.

The “Herald Tribune” reports that critical reaction to •Cleopatra” had made 20thCentury Fox the fourth largest selling stock on Wall Stree - yesterday. Stock dropped two points to 33. a loss of about 5.7 per cent.

Under Che headline, “Cleopatra’s Barge Oarsmen are Ready to Abandon Ship.” the newspaper said that the heavy trading was due to a broker having obtained, ahead of publication, a national wire service’s review of the film. •The critical accent was a bomb,” the newspaper said. "The brokers with long profits in the stock decided there was no point in tak-

:ng any chances that the tenor of this morning's reviews would knock Fox out of bed —so they sold.”

A film which cost 40 million dollars opened tonight wuh a cast of 9000 on the screen and an unruly Broadway crowd of about 8000 who massed outside the theatre to cheer celebrity first-nighters. There were 125 police and security guards to keep lite crowd in check, but the mob surged three times through police barricades before mounted patrolmen could restore order.

The stars. Elizabeth Tay16r and Richard Burton, were in Landon.

Reviews in today's New York morning newspapers, although mixed were mainly friendly. All four papers agreed that Rex Harrison took acting honours. The Associated Press said the film was “merely one more over-long, gaudy and ultimately tedious super screen spectacle." It said: “Elizabeth Taylor, in thighhigh, bosom-deep gowns and eye-shadowed to the ears, isn't, as the saying goes, acting her way out of a paper bag to the title role as ancient Egypt’s femme fatale. Whatever she was thinking about, it wasn’t the role while on camera. “Rictard Burton enacts Mark Antony with sultry mien and paper thin perception leaving much to be desired.”