Word: cassius
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Freedman has given fresh significance to Pindarus--whom Cassius captured, forced into servitude, and finally frees-by assigning the role to a black actor (a forceful Joe Morton). Ray Dooley is sufficiently young-looking for the 21-year-old Octavius, and nicely captures the chill efficiency of this whiz kid with a fourragere on his uniform...
...there are ten versions of Caesar, the first being a French effort of 1907. In the half century since 1929, about 50 sound films have been made, including three of Caesar, all American. The straightforward 1953 version, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz--with James Mason's Brutus, John Gielgud's Cassius. Marlon Brando's Antony, and the late Louis Calhern's Caesar--remains the only excellent Shakespearean film ever done in our country (and few people know that its off-camera crowd roars in the stadium were specially recorded by a huge throng at a baseball game...
...second-longest role of Cassius, Brutus' brother-in-law who originates the murder plot, a bearded Harris Yulin makes his position more plausible and less villainous than we usually see--and perhaps it should be said that there are no thorough villains in this play, except for the gang that lynches a poor poet merely for having the same name as one of the conspirators...
...mentioning Robert Burr's disappointing Caesar. We are prepared for him by an onstage brass band and drum, but when he at last appears we see a most ordinary man (dressed up, to be sure), lacking all force of personality. By no stretch of the imagination could Cassius say that this Caesar " doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus." In the brief colloquy between Caesar and Decius Brutus, the latter exhibits much more magnetism, as played by James Harper, and I wish the two actors had exchanged roles...
Goodness is all in this role, and Roscoe Orman conveys it with naked honesty, especially in a touching scene with his loyal wife Portia (Mary Alice). Gylan Kain's Cassius is less convincing. He possesses the character's guile and envy but not his menace. Morgan Freeman, an actor of intrepid gifts, would have suited the part better, and is somewhat wasted as Casca. While firm in his authority, Sonny Jim Games' Caesar is smugly arrogant rather than imperiously regal...