Julius Caesar **** (1953, John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, James Mason, Louis Calhern, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr, Edmond O’Brien) – Classic Movie Review 2,383

Joseph L Mankiewicz’s fine 1953 Hollywood film of Shakespeare’s Roman play Julius Caesar assembles a grand line-up of real actors in John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, James Mason, Louis Calhern and Edmond O’Brien.

Writer-director Joseph L Mankiewicz’s fine 1953 Hollywood version of Shakespeare’s Roman scandals in 44BC Julius Caesar stars not only a grand line-up of movie stars, but also of real actors in John Gielgud, Marlon Brando, James Mason, Louis Calhern, Greer Garson, Deborah Kerr and Edmond O’Brien.

Gielgud plays the high-ranking Roman conspirator Cassius and also helped Brando with finessing his Shakespearean verse speaking so that he was able to confound the cynics and his critics and turn in an expert performance as Mark Antony, with a particularly memorable success in the ‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’ speech.

Among the other exceptional performances are Gielgud’s own as Cassius, James Mason as Brutus (the other chief conspirator) and Louis Calhern as the doomed Julius Caesar.

The rest of the credit lies at director-writer Mankiewicz’s door. He does full justice to William Shakespeare’s great language while emphasising that there is also a good yarn to communicate here. Mankiewicz delivers a mostly faithful film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, with no significant cuts or alterations.

It has to be said that the women (Greer Garson as Calpurnia and Deborah Kerr as Portia) don’t have a very good time though, but we can probably blame Shakespeare for that.

The MGM film premiered at the Booth Theatre in New York City on 3 June 1953 and was then distributed by Loew’s, Inc.

With Hollywood in big-star Shakespeare mode, there was a big Oscar buzz. But unexpectedly, there was only a single Oscar win: for Cedric Gibbons and Edward Carfagno’s art direction and Edwin B Willis and Hugh Hunt’s set decoration. Indeed, of the actors, only Brando was even nominated, out of a total of five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture for producer John Houseman. The actors did better at the 1954 Baftas, with Gielgud winning Best British Actor and Brando Best Foreign Actor.

The Oscar-nominated original music score is by Miklós Rózsa.

The film got great reviews and, astonishingly, was profitable – just! It cost just over $2 million and earned just under $4 million, apparently resulting in a profit of $116,000.

Brando was immensely popular at the time, and in his prime. His Oscar nomination was his third consecutive for Best Actor in a Leading Role, following 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire and 1952’s Viva Zapata!. He won the following year for On the Waterfront (1954).

It was remade in 1970 as Julius Caesar with Charlton Heston, Jason Robards and John Gielgud again, this time as Caesar. And again for TV in 2002 as Julius Caesar with Jeremy Sisto, Richard Harris and Christopher Walken.

Charlton Heston also appeared in the 1950 film Julius Caesar.

The cast are James Mason as Brutus, Louis Calhern as Julius Caesar, Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, John Gielgud as Cassius, Edmond O’Brien as Casca, Greer Garson as Calpurnia, Deborah Kerr as Portia, George Macready as Marullus, Michael Pate as Flavius, Richard Hale as a Soothsayer, Alan Napier as Cicero, John Hoyt as Decius Brutus, Tom Powers as Metellus Cimber, William Cottrell as Cinna, Jack Raine as Trebonius, Ian Wolfe as Ligarius, Morgan Farley as Artemidorus, Bill Phipps as Servant to Antony, Douglas Watson as Octavius Caesar, Douglass Dumbrille as Lepidus, Rhys Williams as Lucilius, Michael Ansara as Pindarus, Dayton Lummis as Messala, Edmund Purdom as Strato, Paul Guilfoyle as First Citizen, John Doucette as Second Citizen, Lawrence Dobkin as Third Citizen, and Jo Gilbert as Fourth Citizen.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,383

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