In 1944, designer Oliver Messel was released from his war duties in camouflage to work on the film Caesar and Cleopatra, adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play. Messel was responsible for the costumes and the interior design of the sets, bringing all his imagination and ingenuity to creating Roman and Egyptian costumes and interiors in the context of the mid 1940s. The film was the most expensive British film to date, costing over £1m, and brought a welcome sense of extravagance and colour into a drab post-war world. Surprisingly, given his sense of colour, he never worked on another colour film.

Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) played the role of Cleopatra. A good friend of Messel, she threatened to leave the film along with Messel when Pascal clashed with the designer over his wig design for one of Cleopatra’s attendants. Pascal gave in.

Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain's leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, working in every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic designs informed by period styles, were perfectly in tune with his times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, Messel's style had become unfashionable, having no sympathy with the new 'kitchen sink' school of theatre. He increasingly concentrated on non-theatrical painting and designing and eventually retired to the Caribbean, where he began a new career designing and building highly idiosyncratic luxury villas.