William Shakespear's Julius Caesar | 
| Director: Stuart Burge
Actor: Charlton Heston//sir John Gielgud
Studio: Education 2000 Inc.
Category: DVD
Buy New: $14.95
New (4) Used (1) from $14.34
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 58837
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: VMUDEDU13857D
UPC: 754309013857
EAN: 0754309013857
ASIN: B000A6M9TO
Theatrical Release Date: 1970
Release Date: February 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Studio: Victor Multimedia-05 Release Date: 11/22/2005 Run time: 117 minutes
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Julius Caesar DVD March 29, 2009
Ramona T. Mitchell (Kennewick, WA)
The is the poorest quality DVD I've ever purchased. It almost appears as if the video was being shown while someone with a camera phone was videoing the movie. The sound is gravely and distorted while the picture is grainy. I want my money back!
 CHIEFLY USEFUL TO WOULD-BE ACTORS December 7, 2008
David R. Eastwood (Long Island, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 cliche 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.
Terrible Quality! Caveat Emptor! April 23, 2008
EvaMama (Evansville, IN)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Don't waste your money on this product. I did, and am living with the consequence. I'm also thirteen dollars poorer, with nothing to show for it other than a fuzzy, badly spliced copy of the original movie. This looks like a thirteen yr old snuck a video camera into the theater. Not only that, but the movie freezes up. The quality is so bad, it's unwatchable. I can't believe this is still even for sale here.
 Hail Caesar! September 13, 2006
Remus
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the 1970 movie of JULIUS CAESAR, starring Charlton Heston as Antony.
To my mind, it's every bit as good as the earlier, b&w version with Marlon Brando as Antony, though the later BBC version directed by Herbert Wise (who made I, CLAUDIUS) may be the best of the lot, partly because it renders the play virtually uncut. (It's available at Amazon in the set "BBC Shakespeare Tragedies DVD Giftbox".)
All three versions have strong points and weaknesses. The biggest weakest here is the strangely mis-calibrated performance by Jason Robards as Brutus; I think he intended to project quiet fortitude in the first half of the play, but he seems to be moving in a trance. Much better is the Casca of Robert Vaughn (yes, the Man from U.N.C.L.E.), a young and dashing Richard Chamberlain as Octavius, and John Gielgud as Caesar.
The production is visually pleasing, with sets and costumes that for the most part are historically accurate but sometimes have a slight Elizabethan touch, as if to remind us of the play's origins.
BTW, the spelling of Shakespear without a final e is not incorrect; this is a variant of the name which is actually the preferred spelling in some countries.
Footnotes: Before his official movie debut in the early 1950s, Heston played the role of Antony in an independent production of JULIUS CAESAR, which is now available on DVD, and he again played Antony when he directed his own, quite excellent movie version of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (which, alas, is not available on DVD as of 2006.)
 What do Moses, Ben-Hur, and Antony have in common? August 20, 2006
bernie (Arlington, Texas)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
What do Moses, Ben-Hur, and Antony have in common? Answer: They all look like Charlton Heston.
If somehow you missed the play or the history, basically Julius Caesar let his status go to his head and is about to take on the role of emperor. It is up to a handful of Noble Romans to see that this does not happen. The play is about these individuals, their individual purposes and what happens to them after the attempt to stop him. The focus is on Caesar's right arm (Mark Antony).
This is a 1970 rendition of Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar" that is well adapted for the screen. Hence the characters are well known contemporaries. You will notice the major players and might miss some of the others such as Preston Lockwood (Trebonius) who played the Judge in "Strong Poison". With many movies the actor out shine the character and totally changes the emphasis of the story. However this version is well done with maybe the exception of Jason Robards (Brutus) who sometimes seems like Jason Robards playing Brutus at other times he is quite exceptional. Diana Rigg (Portia) who looks like a little girl is the only person that sounds like she is speaking in meter. Everyone speaks clearly and pauses long enough for you to think before moving on. Facial expressions are important to the story and they do not look like they are yelling at you (except in speeches).
You will notice that the background music is also of 70's vantage and is used to emphasize certain scenes. However the volume is not so high that you can not hear the clear pronunciation of the lines. Also the costumes made with satin are distracting. At one point Antony looks like Carol Burnett when she was wearing a curtain and left the rod in.
As the play proceeds you will be so wrapped up in it that you will not care about the little differences in form and be totally absorbed in the film. There may be better versions and/or more favorite versions but that doe not make this version any less worth having.
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