Julius Caesar (1953-Marlon Brando)

I was extremely worried about seeing this movie when I discovered that Marlon Brando got top billing.  I was even more worried when I found that he played Marc Antony.  Antony is supposed to be charismatic and subtle; I had only seen Brando previously in Guys and Dolls, where he has all the charisma and all the subtlety of my dead goldfish.  Come to think of it, maybe my goldfish was subtle... Anyway, he wasn't that bad after all, as it turns out. 

As for the other performances, I cannot praise James Mason as Brutus too much.  Well, maybe I can, but you get the idea.  Greer Garson as Calpurnia was good and Deborah Kerr as Portia was even better.  John Gielgud as Cassius seemed kind of old for the role-Cassius should be young and hot-blooded-and he was a little too hammy and classically Shakespearian for my taste at times but he really wasn't too bad.

Moving on to the rest of the movie, I thought the sets were pretty good.  The costumes seemed kind of stereotypically Roman - a t-shirt with a sheet-but I suppose I shouldn't judge until I go back in time to look at ancient Roman clothes.  The scenery was very obviously filmed in the California desert.  In general, this has the look of almost every movie made starring Charlton Heston (which could be good or bad), but this does not detract from the movie.

There were several moments in this movie that I absolutely loved.  The first that comes to mind is during the murder of Caesar.  Brutus backs away in horror.  The dying Caesar turns and staggers toward him, appealing for help.  Brutus' expression hardens into a kind of scowl as he shoves his dagger in and..."Et tu, Brute?"  All I can say at this scene is, damn.  I also liked the ending of act 1, where the wind starts up and the music turns ominous as the empty Capitol is shown as a transition into the storm imagery of the next scene.

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