Jules César conquérant de la Gaule

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

Expatriate American actor Cameron Mitchell stars as Julius Caesar in the Italian production Caesar The Conqueror. The title is something of a misnomer because he's not conquering anything here, merely trying to hold on to what he's already conquered in Gaul.

Here as in other films Julius Caesar refers to himself in the third person by his proper name. Except in Spartacus where he's a young up and coming man of the hour, in just about every other film I've seen him in he always refers to himself as Caesar. It was his way of saying I'm a man of destiny and something special.

In fact this film is a bit too ambitious for its own good. Films like Cleopatra and Spartacus even more so successfully manage to balance the military campaigns at home with the politics in Rome. But Caesar The Conqueror fails in that task though the battle scenes are nicely staged.

This film concerns Gaul chief Vercingetorix played by Italian peplum film hero Rik Battaglia who is stirring up the people of Gaul and playing for time while Caesar's political enemies seek to do him in at the Roman Senate. Not everyone in Rome was impressed by the man on horseback and that would include Senate's greatest orator Marcus Cicero.

Caesar The Conqueror is a bit better than most peplum offerings, but falls far short of Cleopatra or Spartacus.

The story of the greatest Roman general of all time, is best read from his own commentaries. In this movie called " Ceasar the Conqueror " also taken from those commentaries, is a sad rendition of his life's conquests. In this tale,Cameron Mitchell plays Julius Caesar and for the most part does a good job. His story by the way is poorly portrayed in this Italian movie. The dialog is choppy as best and because of the translation problems, comes off as High Schoolish as best. The acting is poor and also very card board and stiff. Rik Battaglia plays Vercingetorix the best of the Gualic tribes and Carlo Tamberlani as Pompey, both comes off as hammy and unbelievable. Still, If audience members don't mind, the whole production will emerge as second rate as depicted by directed by Tanio Boccia. Here is one film, which should be relegated to the rear of the shelf. **

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.

This film renders the exploits of the famed Roman conqueror (generally depicted on-screen either via the Shakespeare play or the Cleopatra affair) routine through countless tortuous intrigues and, when they finally arrive, lifeless battle sequences (despite some gratuitous carnage in close-up, they're full of choppy stock footage and the moves of the various stuntmen/extras look all-too-obviously choreographed and, worse still, fake)! At the very least, however, the American star of this peplum – Cameron Mitchell, who made several of them during this era – delivers a thoughtful portrayal in the title role. The fact that this is cut-rate even for the modest standards usually set by the genre is borne out by its anonymous production values and supporting cast (other than Rik Battaglia, as a hammy villain bearing the unwieldy name of Vercingetorix, and future Italian TV personality Raffaella Carra', playing Caesar's young protégé); unfortunately, blonde Belgian beauty Dominique Wilms (as Battaglia's warrior lover) does not have near enough screen time to make up for these flaws