Still, the film is so strong and dynamic that subsequent versions (such as Charlton Heston's ambitious 1970 production) pale in comparison. Twenty-year-old Julius Caeser flees Rome for his life during the reign of Sulla, but through skill and ambition rises four decades later to become Rome's supreme dictator. Not that JULIUS CAESAR is without faults it is, occasionally, stagy and artificial, the pacing is a bit too slow and deliberate at times, and, as the title character, Louis Calhern is woefully miscast (he looks and sounds more like a jaded grandfather than the charismatic despot who both enthralled and frightened the Roman world). His performance became the keystone of the film's success. Friends, Romans, Countrywomen Frances Barber performs a scene as the title character in the Donmar Warehouse production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, at St. Cast: Treat Williams (Theodore Lytton), Jeremy London (Jonas Lytton). With a flawless British accent, he easily held his own with the veteran cast, and displayed a magnetism that is still enthralling, over 50 years later. Julius Caesar befriends Hick Benson (Dub Taylor), an old timer who owns a 31-foot. Were they ever WRONG! Brando gave the role a power, a physicality, and charisma that stunned critics and audiences alike. While Brando was already being hailed as the finest American actor of his generation, there were critics, prior to the film's release, who called his acceptance of the role an ego trip, and expected him to fall on his face. Where the greatest gamble, and payoff, came was in the casting of Marlon Brando as Marc Antony. 19 TV Commercial Characters & The Actors Who Played Them. But Mankiewicz understood that Shakespeare was both universal and timeless, and in his capacity of director and (uncredited) screenwriter, he 'opened up' JULIUS CAESAR, eliminating the 'studio' feel of key scenes, and, with producer John Houseman, gathered together an impressive array of talent, with British actors John Gielgud as Cassius, James Mason as Brutus, Greer Garson as Calpurnia, and Deborah Kerr as Portia, and stage-trained American actors such as Oscar winner Edmond O'Brien in supporting roles. The latest commercial titled Coming Super Bowl Sunday sees Caesar at a. For whatever reason, the British seemed to have a 'lock' on filmed versions of the Bard. Perhaps American film makers were afraid audiences would be put off by Shakespeare's text, with its archaic words, or felt that a British cast and the confines of a stage were 'required' to do a 'proper' rendition. Hollywood seemed content to either truncate it in miscast all-star extravaganzas (A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, and ROMEO AND JULIET) or turn it into a weird kind of carnival sideshow (Orson Welles' MACBETH, performed with incomprehensible Scottish accents). Mankiewicz's production, only Laurence Olivier's British versions of HAMLET and HENRY V had truly displayed the power and poetry of the Bard's work. 1953's JULIUS CAESAR was a milestone in it's time, and still is, perhaps, the finest American production of a Shakespeare play ever recorded on film.
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