El Gran Julio Cesar

If Julius Caesar were to have had a publicist back in the day, he could have done worse than have had this created as an example of his military prowess. Cameron Mitchell plays the eponymous Roman autocrat who must rally his troops in the face of an open rebellion at the hands of Gaulish tribal leader Vercingetorix (Rik Battaglia). The story is a bit wobbly - there are some rather unnecessary romantic elements centring around his ward "Publia" (Raffaella Carrà) and the Queen of the Gauls "Astrid" (Dominique Wilms) which offers up a bit of feminine rivalry that doesn't work at all well, but the battle scenes are authentic enough and unlike so many films set around this time, the sets and look of the film come across as more genuine too. Buildings made of brick rather than marble, and the fight scenes more randomly staged (less choreographed) which all helps keep this flowing quite well. Sadly, the dubbing is largely out of synch, the editing seems more as if it had been hacked rather than cut and the budget doesn't quite facilitate the ambitions of director Nino Scolaro. Still, I didn't hate it and fans of the genre ought to get enough from the slightly overlong 1¾ hours to keep it interesting.

The script proudly reads :"from Julius Ceasar's "the Gauls war" but the plot is so far-fetched it can only have been intended as a joke.Sure,we know about Julius's frames of mind which begin and close the movie,but the rest of the story is business as usual.

Vercingetorix is an obscure historic character,only known by Ceasar's pieces of writing.So why not turning him into the movie's villain?Played by a mediocre actor,the Gallic chief looks like a comic strip baddie,lecherous,cruel and treacherous.On the other hand,Romans are noble,brave,loyal and virtuous.

The Alesia episode is completely false historically speaking:it was a very long siege and the director reduces it to a battle .Alesia was located on a hill,in the movie it's a plain.And I'm not sure Mark Antony was here.

But the Gallic had their revenge in 1963:Astérix was born.

One of the better films in Mill Creek's Warriors 50-Pack. It isn't a "clean" copy but you can see and hear the film just fine - but the color of the film is a quite a bit faded. If you are a fan of the film I would recommend finding a stand alone copy that has been cleaned up and color adjusted.

This is the story of how Julius Caesar conquered The Gauls. It's a decent film and account of what happened and how it happened. I am not going to say this is an accurate of what happened because I wasn't there when it happened and really don't know, nor do I claim to know Roman and German history - I'm still learning more about it.

I can say from the stand point of Italian "Hollywood" entertainment - the film is entertaining and is well acted out. Lavish costuming, props and sets the way most all the peplum films are.

5/10

As far as Caesars go, Cameron is better than Calhern, the Caesar in the Brando version of Julius Caesar. And that black and white version was too talky and had little romantic complication. This version is not much better, but at least the performance of Cameron lifts up the Caesar persona a bit higher than the Calhern version. Production values were terrible in both films, so it is like comparing rotten apples to rotten oranges. Cannot recommend either. Even the leaden Cleopatra was almost as bad with full production values. No good film has ever been made about Caesar. Not recommended.

There's nothing to report here other than for once, before France's commercial film market got all artsy in the 60s and 70s, we had a decent epic film with some action made by the French. It could have been a production right out of Hollywood had it not been for the fact that everyone was speaking French.

As you can guess this film deals with Caesar's forays into Gaul, modern France, and how he overcame the Gaullic leader Vercingetorix. Both sides of the conflict are given flourishes, but there is a dash of fatalism in regards to the acting and story presentation (no surprise as it is a French production).

A little history, Julius Caesar simply went into Gaul/France to bolster his own reputation. There was no real threat at the time, and all he did was exacerbate what tension there already was, and, on to of that, tortured and slaughtered thousands all for the sake of his name. Vercingetroix was one of the toughest foes Rome had ever faced, but he was publicly strangled in the end in Rome before the people.

That part is not in this film, nor are Julius Caesar's bloodier exploits of killing women and children, and not just fighting men. But, being a film of the 1960s, there was only so much violence that could be shown at the time.

The acting is okay, the art direction is quite good. It's decently shot for the time; lots of master shots, few cutaways unless focusing on a different character. And, finally, a little hampered in the action department.

I don't if it's the French version of staging a battle, or whether they just didn't have competent technical people, but the battle scenes seemed a little half baked, and that's putting it kindly. Still, they deliver on the action for a film that had been heavy with dialogue, but are somewhat scattered in terms of staging.

Over all it's an okay film. A product of it's time, it's nothing to write home about, but a decent watch all the same.

See it once.