Co-stars Charlton Heston, John Gielgud, Jason Robards, Richard Johnson and Robert Vaughn. 119 minutes. Another try at Shakespeare's famous play, This ones more cinematic, lively and action packed than the 1953 version. Highlights include Heston as Anthony and Richard Johnson as Cassius. Also, Gielgud is a vast improvement on Calhern's 1953 Caesar (although the role cries for Oliver). Surprisingly, Vaughn and Diana Riggs are quite good in their small roles. Heston's funeral oration is excellent and quite unlike Brando. Whereas Mankiweitz and Brando solemnly underplay the whole thing to focus attention on the dialogue, Burge makes the oration into an action packed scene with Heston moving and interacting with Crowd, sometimes even yelling his words. But all these good points can't make up for Robard's awful Brutus. Everyone - including Robards - agrees his zombie like performance was terrible, leading me to wonder why he was cast in the first place? Its unfortunate that the director didn't see the disaster coming and have Robards and Richard Johnson switch parts.
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