The Marlon Brando Version Was Better
Added 8/2/2009
I watched the 1953 Marlon Brando version last weekend, and I just finished watching the 1970 Charlton Heston version today. Even though the 1970 version is in color with better production quality, the black and white 1953 Marlon Brando version with antiquated scenery is a better movie. The 1953 version also had much better casting. This includes the roles of Mark Antony, Brutus, and Cassius. The only actor in the 1970 version that was better than the 1953 version was Sir John Gielgud's Caesar. Ironically, John Gielgud played Cassius in the 1953 version and Caesar in the 1970 version. He was superb in both roles. I was disappointed with Lewis Calhern's Caesar in the 1953 version. The 1953 version of Julius Caesar was superior in almost every way that matters.
There is a reason the Brando version costs $13.99 and the Heston version costs $8.99. If you have to choose between the two, buy the $13.99 version.
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" WHEREFORE ART THOU, LIGARIUS ? "
Added 7/16/2009
" JULIUS CAESAR ", by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; 1970 Movie Version Review:
SIR JOHN GIELGUD as Julius Caesar proved that he is a master of his craft;
DIANA RIGG (Portia, M. Brutus' wife), DEREK GODFREY (the cunning Decius Brutus), and JILL BENNETT (Calpurnia, J. Caesar's wife) were also all very good. But,
RICHARD JOHNSON's volitile portrayal of Gaius Cassius STOLE THE SHOW as one of SHAKESPEARE's best antagonists in this classical drama.
CHARLTON HESTON (Marc Antony) would also have been very good, but his entire performance was upstaged by that ridiculous red wig he wore... what were they thinking? An Irish Marcus Antonius?
JASON ROBARDS is historically a very capable Ocsar-winning actor. However, cast as Marcus Brutus here, he delivered SHAKESPEARE's emotionally-charged dialogue in a boring, almost annoying monotone voice.
The only emotion he showed in the whole movie was in his "war-of-words" with Cassius (RICHARD JOHNSON) in the tent before the Battle of Phillipi.
ROBERT VAUGHN apparently honed some good acting skills after being "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." on TV, and delivered a surprisingly fine portrayal of the devious Senator/Conspirator Casca. And,
RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN was competent as Octavian Augustus Caesar (which is not much of a role in this play); but as a wise thespian named Kildare once said, "there are no small roles, only small doctors".
It's a MYSTERY who portrayed GAIUS LIGARIUS, the play's eighth Senator/Conspirator seen in this movie. Neither the character nor the actor are named in the credits, on DVD, VHS, in the movie's website, or on IMDb. The Invisible RoMan?
STUART BURGE as Director turned in a production equal to his 1965 movie version of Shakespeare's OTHELLO, with Sirs Laurence Olivier and Derek Jacobi.
ROBERT FURNIVAL's Adapted Screenplay was basically true to SHAKESPEARE.
KENNETH HIGGINS' Cinematography was first-rate and visually appealing.
OVERALL, I rate this production a 7.5 on a ten-scale.
ONE FINAL FOOTNOTE: SIR JOHN GIELGUD was also in the cast of the 1953 movie version of JULIUS CAESAR, with Marlon Brando and James Mason. He portrayed Gaius Cassius brilliantly. And, yes, CASSIUS stole the show in that version as well. I recommend you watch both of them !
Ray Harp, April 8, 2009
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As a teacher on the high school level, this has proved to be extremely valuable, but it doesn't follow the play exactly toward the later part of the movie.
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Countrymen, lend me your letterbox!
Added 4/3/2009
Intersting film with an all-star cast. Just about every performance in the picture is fine except for Jason Robards. He does his best but is done in by being miscast. Heston, Chamberlain, Gielguld, Rigg,and Vaughn are all fine. The real standout is Richard Johnson. A superb job. Now for the bad news. This release is full-screen. It should have been widescreen. Beware the Ides of Pan and Scan!
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CHIEFLY USEFUL TO WOULD-BE ACTORS
Added 12/7/2008
Despite its full title, Shakespeare's THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR has long been recognized as centering on the tragedy of Marcus Brutus. For one thing, Caesar dies before the play is even half over; for another, Brutus is a good man who brings about his own downfall by his own mistakes. Shakespeare's script contains numerous scenes that provide direct and indirect evidence that Brutus is worthy of the audience's respect and admiration. In most productions, therefore, it has been crucial that the actor playing Brutus do so in a manner that holds the audience's attention and causes the audience to care deeply about the misfortune he is bringing down upon himself.
This 1970 film, JULIUS CAESAR, is fairly well cast in all its parts but the key one--Jason Robards as Brutus. Two actors with very minor parts are noteworthy for their skills--Lawrence Harrington as the Carpenter and Ron Pembler as the Cobbler--at the opening of the play. Of the main characters, John Gielgud as Caesar and Richard Johnson as Cassius are both excellent. Diana Rigg as Brutus's beautiful and faithful wife Portia, Robert Vaughn as an ironic eye-rolling Casca, and Richard Chamberlain as a calculating Octavius are more than adequate. And Charlton Heston does a reasonably good job as Mark Antony, although director Stuart Burge often seems more concerned with displaying Heston's "Roman-nose" profile and his semi-clad physique (in a G-string in one scene) than with his histrionic talents.
Robards is virtually sleepwalking throughout most of the film, usually sounding as if he has no understanding of the words he is speaking and often stumbling through them the way some high school freshman might if suddenly told to read Elizabethan blank verse for the first time in his life. In only a few of the later scenes does Robards seem to come half to life. The effect of his exceedingly weak performance is to shift the audience's attention, by default, onto Mark Antony (whom Robards often calls "Mark Anthony")--and Shakespeare's play is almost morphed into a kind of Victory-of-Antony celebration. It is as if, as the old cliché runs, "the tail is wagging the dog." (The only comparable misconstruing of a major Shakespearian tragedy that I can recall was when, in a 1970 "Hallmark Hall of Fame" TV production, Richard Chamberlain played Hamlet as such a pitifully and dangerously out-of-control maniac that the actor Richard Johnson, playing Hamlet's uncle/stepfather as a calm, brave, and rational man, often gained most of the audience's sympathy--and the play almost became "The Tragedy of King Claudius.")
It appears that once this film was completed, Republic Entertainment's marketing division decided to focus primarily on Heston as Mark Antony, reinforcing the impression that Robards' Brutus is indeed a subordinate character. Posters and virtually every box containing videos and DVDs of this production feature pictures of either Heston's face alone or Heston's face four times larger than the faces of Robards, Guelgud, Chamberlain, and Diana Rigg--as well as giving Heston's name top billing.
I titled my review "Chiefly Useful to Would-Be Actors" because I believe that some novice actors might learn how to speak Shakespeare's lines properly by hearing how NOT to do so from Robards' terrible example. Except for diehard fans of Heston, Richard Chamberlain, Diana Rigg, etc., most other viewers would do far better buying/renting Joseph L. Mankiewicz's much better 1953 film of JULIUS CAESAR--which also has Guelgud as Caesar, and has Marlon Brando as Antony and James Mason as Brutus.
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