‘Gabby’ Pascal was much larger than life. His public disdain for Arthur Rank, his cynicism especially in rushes, would be quoted for years afterwards. One evening, during rushes, the unit watched about 30 or so, 30ft clips of beautiful girls’ artistes tests - all dark and gorgeous, until the screen filled with a beautiful blonde: ~‘Ah, a Christian”, yelled Pascal. J. Arthur Rank, a deeply religious man was a son of the famous flour milling dynasty with numerous large mills in South Wales. J. Arthur’s earliest days in film were his free showings in derelict shops in Cardiff of 16 mm religious shorts. This passion for film seemed limitless though it was a big step to having his fine modem studios hosting Caesar with Gabriel Pascal directing. Pascal’s almost public daily morning calls to Arthur Rank were pure circus; “Yes Yes Arturo”, receiver at arm’s length, "Yes, Yes Arturo, Go ---- yourself" “Oh, and Arturo, that will cost you another sack of flour!” Rank visited the studio every Saturday morning. He sat on the set, with little idea of what was really going on. He tried to talk to Pascal, before he saw most of the week’s rushes with almost total indifference. For some weeks in the eight months of shooting, Pascal and Claude Rains were not on speaking terms, with Rains’ total professionalism parrying Pascal’s obscenities, sarcasm and invective. A trusted intermediary was necessary, and John Dennis was the man for such a thankless position. This was no way to direct any film, to say nothing of the time wasting of a big unit. Time and money seemingly no problem; many of Denham’s extensive permanent features were considerably augmented, very much of which was loaded on to the production. The schedule was quite elastic.The mandate was that this major production must reflect Britain’s ability to produce such a film in the very anxious days of 1944. Denham Studios programme was full to capacity. It’s 7 stages usually servicing 3 or so feature productions. However, the Caesar schedule was soon outdated and the stages would be filled entirely by GPM-12 sets occupying space that would have been allocated to other productions. This, in turn, had a serious and costly knock-on effect. Denham’s 4 permanent sound-crews had to be paid even though not on active production.  At one time, Caesar was supporting all of them, though only one crew was active. Dexterous planning by Tom White and Ray Anzarut confined this very costly period to an absolute minimum. | 
