Jules César conquérant de la Gaule

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.

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. **

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.

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

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.