Julius Caesar

Lavish, starstruck and for the most part, splendid. When John Houseman and Joseph Mankiewicz, brother of Herman, decided to film Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, they picked an elegant and distinguished cast--Mason, Gielgud, Calhern, O'Brien--but they also shocked the industry and not a few literary scholars by selecting Brando to play Marc Antony. He was then still known as "The Mumbler" and "The Slob," for his brutish performance as Stanley Kowalski in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. But Brando turned that opinion about in a startling performance.

JULIUS CAESAR was the brainchild of Houseman and Mankiewicz, the producer having worked with Orson Welles and the Mer...