Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD:it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Mono ),Japanese ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ),SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Scene Access,SYNOPSIS: In its time, Caesar and Cleopatra was the most lavish British film ever produced and was both a financial and critical disappointment. Viewed today, the flaws are obvious, but its virtues are also more apparent. On the debit side, the film is wildly overproduced with all of the money spent on spectacle getting in the way of what at heart is a character study cum sociological tract. Author George Bernard Shaw is known for writing "talky" plays. Those who savor his sharp wit, incisive observations, and marvelous facility with words will find much to enjoy in Caesar. But those who believe that movies are a medium that need to tell stories in as visual a manner as possible will largely be bored by Caesar -- and not without reason, as Gabriel Pascal has directed in a lumbering and plodding manner almost throughout. The stars are well cast, with Vivien Leigh an alluring and fiery Cleopatra and Claude Rains appropriately cynical and withering as Caesar. And there's able support from the delicious Flora Robson and a virile Stewart Granger. Ultimately, there's both good and bad in Caesar, and a viewer's reaction to it will largely depend upon his willingness to sit through an elephantine production to enjoy Shaw's remarkable wordplay.
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Oscar Academy Awards,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #134306 in DVD
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Import, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 123 minutes

Features

• THIS DVD WILL NOT WORK ON STANDARD US DVD PLAYER

Customer Reviews

Don't See How It Could Be Better
I own this on Beta and just saw the last half again on Satellite. I was greatly disappointed to find it is not available on DVD. Perhaps the poor reviews you have for it have not helped. This is a great play and movie. All the stars give great performances. Claude Rains is Ceasar as I want him to be -and believe he was. I love the bits of wisdom that GBS sprinkles throughout the script, e.g.,"There's a Roman who knows how to make men love him!" Vivien Leigh is a believable princess of Egypt. Rufio, the ideal Right-Hand Man. Pftatateeta, the perfect chief handmaiden for Cleo. Apollodorus and the British Slave both perfect in their roles. This is one of the small number of films I can see over and over and still enjoy, even though, or perhaps because, every line of dialog is familiar.

Vivien is stunning!
This movie is pretty cool but Vivien makes it marvelous! Hey DVD people! Why does this movie get released on DVD for the UK and not the USA? I would like this movie for my DVD collection!

It's Still A Delight! Really It Is!...
Yes, those that complain that this 1946 film version of Shaw's famous play of the same name is mainly 'stage-bound' and the acting often seems 'stilted'-- well, sigh, they surely have a point.

Bernard Shaw himself (he did not die until the 1950s) is credited with the screenplay, which may have something to do with the criticisms. Shaw is very talky and hard to 'transfer' to motion picture standards of verisimulitude, but this movie has a beautiful, delightful Vivien Leigh, the incomparable Claude Rains, the beautifully dashing Stewart Granger, plus 'old friends' of the classic British cinema such as Flora Robson, Felix Aylmer, Basil Sidney, Stanley Holloway, Leo Genn, Francis L. Sullivan -- all who appeared in wonderful films like Laurence Olivier's 'Hamlet', David Lean's 'Great Expectations' and many other intelligent pictures of that pre- and post-war (WWII, that is) period. (There is even a very very young, but very lovely as always, Jean Simmons as a slave of Cleopatra who plays the harp.)

The picture attempts an 'epic' look, with battles yet noted I'm afraid by unconvincing stunt work and 'casts of thousands' sort of milling about -- and Cecil B. De Mille does this so much better than Gabriel Pascal, the director of 'Caesar and Cleopatra'. But I myself admit I love the Shavian ambience -- the intellectual activist actually attractive (in Shaw's plays at least!) to the winsome young woman; ... friendship, discussion and respect; thought as more important than 'action-adventure'.

If Shaw's plays do seem too dated to you and they generally bore you, yes, stay far away from this film! But if you brighten when 'entertainment' is also provocative to the intellect and not only to the eye (and other sense organs) -- and particularly if you have great affection for the era of British cinema dominated by Olivier, David Lean, and the early Tony Richardson and featuring so many familiar and adept character actors that fill the firmament with 'supporting' stars, you will like the movie, and ignoring its quite obvious flaws, enjoy every minute: I guarantee it!...