उपयोगकर्ता समीक्षाएं

As a movie El Cid grows on you. At first it is the story of a relatively ordinary man whose trip to his wedding is interrupted by a battle between the Moors and the Christians of 11th century Spain. But this is no ordinary man. Or perhaps he is an ordinary man who is destined to do extraordinary things. Early on he is forced to kill his fiancé's father as a matter of family honor, thus earning the enmity of his fiancé, who nonetheless cannot stop loving him, however hard she tries. And much of the story is devoted to the doomed nature of their love, as historical events continue to overtake the plans they would rather make. And with each new episode El Cid's stature grows, from warrior to hero to legend to mythic figure. Even in exile he has a following. And if the script is not true to history, this film still does a great service to the memory of a great man who put God and country ahead of himself. Something extra must be said about the crowd scenes. There were real people out there, not multiple CGI images made to look like the hordes that are a part of all epics. Over 30,000 costumes were made for this movie and General Franco donated the Spanish army to fill them. The difference is stunning, and sobering. There is a reality to the battle scenes that simply doesn't obtain in later movies such as Gladiator or Lord of the Rings. Now that old films such as this are so readily available in various formats we are presented with the dilemma of deciding which ones should occupy our bookshelves, to return to again, to remember a detail, or to reclaim the feeling that the story may create. In terms of the greatness, the mission and the struggles of the human spirit, this one's a keeper.

EL CID takes its place among the great screen epics that never allow the eye-popping spectacle to dwarf the human characters--just as "Ben-Hur" was able to do. And who else to play the legendary and noble Spanish hero than CHARLTON HESTON. He's magnificent here, playing his central role with an almost Shakespearean grandeur, as do some of the other cast members, including HERBERT LOM, JOHN FRASER and GARY RAYMOND.

So is the epic sweep of the tale and the intimate love story that begins when he is on his way to wed SOPHIA LOREN and finds himself asked to assume the mantle of leadership against the Moors in 11th century Spain. He makes the journey from peace-broker accused of treason to the King's fighting champion and later from exiled hero to legendary martyr.

Aside from the brilliant cinematography, authentic looking locales and colorful costumes, Miklos Rozsa's score adds a great deal to the intensely dramatic intimate scenes as well as the epic battles, all the while suggesting some Spanish motifs amidst the heraldic fanfares and love theme.

CHARLTON HESTON makes an impressive figure of El Cid, especially good in the final moments as the wounded leader who knows what he must ask his wife to do so that his followers do not lose heart after his death. RAF VALLONE as Count Ordonez, GENEVIEVE PAGE as Princess Urraca, JOHN FRASER as Prince Alfonso and GARY RAYMOND as Prince Sancho are all remarkable effective in strong supporting roles. In lesser roles, HURD HATFIELD and FRANK THRING bring their own brand of authority to minor parts.

Anthony Mann and his assistant directors have done an outstanding job on all of the battle scenes and he never falters in telling the tale in strong dramatic terms. There's an intensity in the scenes between Loren and Heston after he has been forced to kill her father for humiliating his own father in front of the court. Whatever friction there was between Heston and Loren on the set, works for them here because her animosity toward him is a chilling thing to watch.

The DVD has been wonderfully mastered and all of the Miklos Rozsa score sounds better than ever with Overture, Intermission and Exit music reminding us all what a treasure he was as a film composer.

El Cid is the story of legendary Rodrigo Diaz who lifted his country with valour and integrity to drive the Moorish invaders from Spain.

I think the best thing I can say about this film is that even though it's nearly three hours long, I never once look at the clock. It's a thoroughly engaging picture that boasts all the great hallmarks of a sweeping historical epic. The colour, the costumes, the scope, and the attention to detail from director Anthony Mann are first rate, and par for the course is the suitably rousing score from Miklos Rozsa. Big square jawed bronzed beefcake Charlton Heston takes the lead role as Diaz, and firmly cements himself as the go to guy for gargantuan epics. Support comes in the form of Sophia Loren, Genevieve Page, Raf Vallone, John Fraser (excellent), and Gary Raymond (also excellent).

The story is an excellent one because Diaz was such a fine character from the annals of Spanish history, uniting the sulking Christian kings of Spain whilst simultaneously lifting the people of the streets off their knees and getting them to believe in the cause. However, it has to be said that this is far from the perfect historical epic movie, even allowing for the usual Hollywoodisation of facts, one can't quite get past the fact that El Cid comes across as a glamorised glory tale without any hindrances. Surely here in the 11th century El Cid's path would have been fraught and sodden with a great deal more death and destruction? There's a tameness where there should be serrated edges to the story and it takes away greatly from the film's end because the build up of Cid's heroism actually didn't contain a great deal of hard work - it was a stroll in the park so to speak.

Still, it's a wonderful film that ticks all the boxes for genre staples, and as churlish as I may be as regards the assumptive nature of El Cid's story being told here, I'm still the first to start cheering and thumping my chest as the credits role, and not even Sophia Loren's pout can distract me from the bravado warmth washing over me. 8/10

Grim, Ponderous, Moving, Magnificent

I'm a girl and have a girl's taste in movies. If I'm going to watch a movie with a lot of sword fights, oppressed peasants, and corrupt kings, I want it to be a swashbuckler, preferably one starring Errol Flynn. Swashbucklers bring a lot of humor to otherwise unbearable dramatic situations.

"El Cid" presents unbearable dramatic situations, and it is not a laugh riot. I saw the three-hour plus, uncut version and never felt tempted to laugh once. This is the Middle Ages without Monty Python, without the levity of an Errol Flynn - Olivia De Haviland romance or comic relief of a Little John.

Boy oh boy was this grim. And long. You could have almost filmed the entire film with three colors: white, black, and red. Lots of red.

But "El Cid" did to me what it wanted to do. I really believed in Rodrigo and Jimena as star-crossed, larger-than-life lovers. I really believed that the little girl who leads them from her well to her farm house lived a thousand years ago. I really believed that something like the mouth of hell itself was opening up as Ben Yusef invaded. I really believed in Rodrigo's relentless nobility and heroism. Neither Charlton Heston's strangely artificial looking hair nor the obvious non-Arab status of a couple of the "Moors" (Douglas Wilmer, who later played Sherlock Holmes, was one especially unconvincing Arab) interfered with my willing suspension of disbelief. I cried. Several times.

There's a lot to cry about. In almost every scene, someone is either crying, usually Sophia Loren, or gritting his teeth, often Charlton Heston, but others grit their teeth a lot, also. Actually Loren doesn't so much cry, but, rather, huge, luminous tears quiver, poised, on her lower eyelid. In her final scenes, the teardrop dancing on her right eyelid is so huge, black and luminous it begins to look like a second pupil.

If the sound of horse hoof-beats does something for you, you will love this movie. There are many horses. Many, many, many. And they are always thundering off to somewhere, more often than not, over cobblestones. Lots of horse hoof-beats on this soundtrack.

Some viewers found the plot hard to understand; they, perhaps, saw the cut version. Having seen the uncut version, I found the plot entirely comprehensible.

"El Cid" is like a ballad. There is one grim face-off after another, escalating in gravity, in which the hero proves that he is growing into his own heroism, through every choice he makes. Each choice is harder than the last one, until his final choice, which is truly impossible, but which he fulfills anyway. If you like medieval ballads, you may love this movie. It has the same grim beauty and power and inexorability, the same insistence on throwing whatever is divine in naked human character up against the impossible demands of earthly life.

For such a long movie, there is scant dialogue. With few words, people prove their true character through their actions, just as characters in ancient epics did.

One viewer complained that this movie bore no relation to the "real" El Cid legend. If that is true, the movie is all the more remarkable. The filmmakers managed to create, from scratch, a convincing and moving medieval narrative.

I like my fair share of epics, Lawrence of Arabia, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, all but to name a few. El Cid is one of the best epics I've seen, not the best, but it's up there. While long, it is always compelling with very rare a dull moment. The direction from Anthony Mann is excellent, and when it comes to the acting Charlton Heston is charismatic and powerful and Sophia Loren is stunning. That is not to forget Herbert Lom, Genvieve Page and Michael Hordern who among the great supporting cast are especially outstanding The characters are well-written and noble, and fully justified by one of the most literate scripts I feel ever in an epic. The story is also of exceptional quality, the cinematography and scenery are magnificent and Miklos Rosza's score is superlative. The action sequences also add to its sense of wonder, they are astonishing and the jousting scene is one of the best scenes in a film of this genre. Overall, an outstanding film and one of the best epics in my view. 10/10 Bethany Cox

This is one of the best epic super-productions of all time, with a beautiful cinematography, a majestic score and a solid and dynamic direction.

Still many people put it down as a folly with no real depth or substance, and others for its historical inaccuracy. Yes, it is not one hundred per cent historically accurate, but then, how much do we really know about an 11th century warrior when very few written documents of the era survive today? We only have a few of the old cantigas (poems to be sung) and the Poema de Mio Cid at the Spanish national archives.

Many Spaniards tend to put this great film down only because it was made by a bunch of American and Italian "philistines" with no knowledge of the legend at all but for the only purpose of creating an epic to rival with "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus". That is a childish way to see it.

At least we should be grateful that someone came up and took the challenge of making such a film in the first place. That man was Samuel Bronston.

This self-made movie mogul not only had the confidence and charm to persuade other people to lend him huge sums of money but he also got Franco's ultra-Catholic fascist regime to approve the making of a film about their national hero where the main character was to be played by a foreigner who was also a Protestant. Of course, Bronston succeeded easily through bribery in a corrupt country, as well as through the willingness of Franco to allow American business to settle in Spain and help revive its obsolete economy. Franco would use "El Cid" to promote Spain around the world as a touristic destination during the Sixties.

Bronston wanted to make an unique epic, a high quality production with sheer spectacle and credited with some historical veracity. So he hired the best people he could think of: cinematographer Robert Krasker, who used the radical and innovative Technirama70 format that magnified the endless open spaces of the Spanish plateaus, Miklos Rozsa for the score -his last great triumph, which should have won him another Oscar- and Anthony Mann, who had cut his teeth making Westerns with James Stewart. Finally, as technical adviser Bronston hired the illustrious Spanish scholar Ramon Menendez Pidal, the greatest living authority on El Cid at that time. Don Ramon was also of great assistance to Rozsa during the composer's careful and thorough research on Spanish medieval music. Rozsa visited the libraries and archives of old monasteries and was given special access to documents dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Not many film composers would have gone through such painstaking research work, but Rozsa was a perfectionist and probably the greatest composer of all.

When we think of the leading male stars in Hollywood at that time, Heston had become world famous and highly bankable after the huge success of "Ben-Hur" and the Oscar it won him. So he was the ideal man for the role.

Bronston wanted Loren because of her fast-growing popularity, as well as by the the fact that hiring her would please the Italian investors and that would mean more money into the budget. Then enter the British, and what a fine supporting cast they are: the smoky-voiced Genevieve Page as Urraca(it is the Spanish word for jackdaw, by the way) who always reminds me of Lauren Bacall; the gentlemanly and self-composed Michael Hordern as Rodrigo's father, the handsome blue-eyed John Fraser as the arrogant but vulnerable prince Alfonso, Gary Raymond as prince Sancho, Douglas Wilmer as Rodrigo's Arab ally, and finally the recently deceased, excellent Czeck-born character actor Herbert Lom as the black-clad villain, a role initially offered to Orson Welles and who turned it down when he learnt that audiences wouldn't see his masked face. The great Orson needed the money very much to finance his own projects, but sometimes his ego was bigger than him.

"El Cid" was a huge box-office hit all around the world and made Bronston a very rich man. The profits of the film were used to start preparing "The Fall of the Roman Empire", but then the refusal of Heston to work again with Loren -they detested each other- set in motion the snowball that would sweep the Bronston empire. Although three more epics were made: the exotic and spectacular "55 Days at Peking", the splendid but unjustly failed "The Fall of the Roman Empire" that bankrupted Bronston, and the minor and much cheaper "The Magnificent Showman", which was his swansong, he never again reached the heights of greatness and success he had reached with "El Cid".

And then think that the tournaments and battles you see here were staged for real, with real armours, swords, catapults and everything, and thousands of people taking part -entire companies of the Spanish army and entire villages of civilians were hired as extras. Today you will never get that in a film: too costly and too complicate to coordinate. And of course, all of the Health and Safety rubbish laws that there are nowadays... If you play knights of the Round Table you can cut yourself, mind you. So enter CGI.

But at least we have "El Cid" in all its glory.

And please, let them not make a remake. Let them not destroy the old magic and beauty of cinema.

El Cid was an interesting film to watch.

It provides some great moments of grandeur and scale during it battle sequences but falls short on characters. I found almost all the characters in the film pretty forgettable and not really worth investing in, they all managed to have something off about them. Yes people are flawed so why shouldn't their characters be? But there was something else slightly intangible going on as well.

The film is an unnecessary 3 hours long, I like a good epic but the story didn't shirt that much nor provide intricacies that required such a long running time.

It is enjoyable to watch but could have been a lot better :)

Aroused by a fanatical Moorish warlord, emir-king attack a Castilian village, where they are captured by Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar…

Vigorously brave and compassionate, the noble Rodrigo hates bloodshed and vows to see his country at peace, frees the prisoners on their solemn pledge never again to attack Castile…

For this act of courage and mercy, one of the Emirs, Moutamin, calls Rodrigo "El Cid," and pledges eternal friendship to the Cid of Vivar… And so, in freeing the Moors, Rodrigo, accidentally, stumbled onto a battle, not to his luscious bride, but to a battle that will change his whole life…

In the court of King Ferdinand, Rodrigo's act of clemency is misinterpreted, and he's accused of treason by his rival Don Ordonez for refusing to turn over to him the captures Moors…

Unfortunately, Rodrigo's aged father, Don Diego, is slapped by the Champion of the king, Count Gormaz, father of his beloved Chimene… Rodrigo begs Gormaz an apology; it is refused… A duel begins and the champion is badly wounded… Before he dies, however, he asks Chimene to avenge his death…

Chimene's wish is fulfilled when King Ramiro of Aragon challenges King Ferdinand for the possession of the city of Calahorra by the outcome of a single combat…El Cid convinces the king to permit him to fight Don Martin…Thus, according to the custom of trial by combat, God would judge Rodrigo's guilt or innocence…

"El Cid" is an intense film, lavish and spectacular, bigger than any in terms of cast and impressive as any in visual terms… Miklós Rózsa gave a new dimension to the emotion that Anthony Mann was trying to express…

Mann gives us a human story with a love story balanced with the most strongly image of a hero the world has ever seen… He presented a man of honor who thinks always of his wife, his country, and his king first… Even in death, his thoughts are for others and not himself…

El Cid insults kings and noblemen in the name of justice and integrity and does what he knows to be right… He battles the king's living sword in respect of his father… He accepts the challenge of a champion of a king to prove himself innocent of treason and other things… He shows a prince how any man can kill and only a king can give life… He fights 13 knights, at the same time, to free a prisoner… Yet he is in addition to all of this an extremely principled leader… He accepts exile for life from the country he loves, and yet he is the only man in Spain who 'could humble a king and would give a leper to drink from his own pouch…'

The joust sequence called "The fight for Calahorra," is perhaps the most rousing, exciting, one-to-one combat ever filmed… The battle scenes at Valencia are taken on an epic scale… But the value of Anthony Mann's movie is the characterization in which Charlton Heston played El Cid's life… For this reason alone, the film is of greater value than most any other motion picture experience

I don't know everything about the historical fact, or the legend, of El Cid, but from what I know, I can see that a lot of it did make it into this. The story seems to stick to the truth, as far as we know it, much of the way. This has a great plot that keeps you interested. The characters are well-developed, credible and consistent. The majority of the acting performances are marvelous. This has a grand feel to it, and an epic scope, and the sweeping orchestral score helps establish and maintain it. The writing is top-notch throughout. This has a solid pace, and the three hours hold few, if any, dull moments. The dialog is well-delivered and has some quite memorable lines. This has large-scale battle sequences, and they're well-done. The production values leave nothing to be desired, and everything looks and sounds exactly right. At no point does this feel like they ran out of budget somewhere, or had to use the second-best solution to an issue they faced. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Not the best of its kind, however it is definitely worth your time. I recommend this to anyone interested in this, be it for Rodrigo, Heston, or any other reason. 7/10

El Cid is possibly the best of the pre-CGI large scale historical epics.

It is certainly in the same conversation as Ben Hur, Spartacus, The Seven Samurai, and Lawrence Of Arabia.

Charlton Heston plays El Cid, the Spanish hero of the middle-ages who fought both with and against the Moors, for the greater good of Spain.

Heston was born to play these roles and provides another fine larger than life performance.

He is well supported by Sophia Loren as both his love interest and sworn enemy.

Historical films these days are expected to make an effort toward authenticity in look, costume, customs etc (Woke productions aside), But El-Cid made a decent fist of this back in 1959.

Effort has been made to target a mature audience, with a sensible screenplay.

The action is good, and the physical appearance of the film is impressive.

All up it's great entertainment.

Although El Cid purports to be a historical epic, there is very little about it that is true to history beyond the names of the people involved.

Considering it does not attempt to be historically accurate, it should have been more exciting. But while there are some impressive scenes of castles and armies and landscapes, there's surprisingly little action. Rather, there are endless sequences of armies marching, parades, and lavish ceremonies that have no purpose in the plot, get boring quickly and needlessly add an hour to the film. Most of the sword fighting sequences are laughably staged, and there is no memorable set-piece battle or other scene, which is why the movie seems to have been forgotten compared to far-superior epics like Ben Hur.

For me, El Cid is a wonderful movie, great story, magnificent action scenes and shot very close to where the original saga is believed to have taken place. I'll never forget the image of the dead El CID riding along the beach into eternity on his magnificent white horse. Taking all this into account,I was very surprised to read where Charlton Heston said he was very disappointed with this particular movie and believed the director was not equel to the task of directing such an epic undertaking. This was not obvious to me as I found the battle scenes very exciting and very well executed, but the late MR. Heston stated that had the directing duties been undertaken by David Lean, who was his preferred choice, the movie could have been really great, rather than just "adequate" Hestons own words. Still, it remains for many people a great film and in these days of boring CG effects, it is a great example of movies as they should be made.

I'm a medieval historian by profession and I think the feelings of most medievalists about El Cid are bound to be mixed. Of course it's a terrific epic and they make effective use of medieval locations - Peniscola, standing in for Valencia, looks sensational. There's also some excellent, genuinely late 11th-c stone sculpture and bronze doors. But the clothing and armour are late medieval and the depiction of attitudes, whether religious or political, is sadly all over the place. War lord, made a few years later and also starring Heston, gets much closer to the real eleventh century than El Cid manages to do. Quite apart from authenticity, my feelings are ambivalent. The music is gorgeous and the battle scenes - all done with real people - are exciting. But the love story draaags and the plot line is too discursive. Also, El Cid himself just doesn't seem real. The shape of his career is never explained properly. Curiously enough, a much more realistic film could be made in these more cynical times about the adventurer/mercenary soldier that the Cid actually was. It would be a good film too! But it would be very different from this classic, and the thousands of extras wouldn't be there. At the end of the day I can forgive the longeurs of the film for two standout moments that never fail to thrill: the opening of the barn door and the moving acclaim the Cid gets from the hundreds of followers who have been waiting silently for him to appear, and of course the unforgettable last minutes.

An outstanding movie still in 2019. Magnificent in many ways, music score, cinematography, costumes, sets, battles, it's got it all. I watched this on a channel called KANOPY in Australia, but I understand it comes out of San Francisco. It is obtained through ones local library. If you are a library member you can get the app. I saw this back in 1962 and still today it is one of the greatest epics ever made. If it's not historically correct in some ways we must remember most everything these is dramatised. Try to find this to watch for the first time or again. Sophia Loren is beautiful, Charlton Heston doing what he did best and a magnificent cast of British and European actors. I read that Martin Scorsese was one of the people responsible for this beautiful restoration.

"El Cid" is not a bad film at all. The movie clearly is a huge spectacle and compared to most historical films it is rather accurate. But, on the flip side, it also is amazingly dull when the film shifts to the romance between El Cid (Charlton Heston) and Jimena (Sophia Loren)--such that I really cannot wholeheartedly recommend it.

El Cid was a title given to Rodrigo de Bivar by the Moorish Muslims. This is because as the movie shows at the beginning, he was a merciful man in war and was very open towards Muslims. However, what the film does not show is that he was so open-minded that he ALSO was employed by the Moors and Christians interchangeably. When the film shows the battles he's in, they are impressive and the costumes are lovely. The film also has LOTS of intrigues--such as the murder of Rodrigo's master and his subsequent expulsion. All this is quite nicely done and it looks great.

Apparently, Heston and Loren didn't like each other in real life. This could easily be. But the biggest problem is the terrible dialog. Too often, it comes off as stuffy and dull--and not believable in the least. And, at well over three hours, this is a serious problem. In other words, is it worth watching the fighting and intrigues when you often are forced to slog through one of the least romantic romances in film history. Good but not great overall.

I was debating how to vote on this one as it is one of my favorite movies of all time, and only if I felt something was missing would I not give it a 10.

Well I couldn't think of a single thing missing or that could've been done better in this movie, so this is the first 10/10 or 5/5 I have given. Seriouslly, its that good.

I am very particular about my movies. There has to be good story, characters, action, cinematography and attention to detail and authenticity.

El Cid has all this and more. The characters are compelling and real, both noble and craven. The story is based on a real person and real location and events, although I am sure some liberties have been taken to dramatize things during this Spanish/moorish conflict. Costumes seem authentic, and there is plenty of action for all so long as you don't mind the long periods of drama between them. And frankly, I give this movie a capitol D for drama!

This is the kind of classic epic that moves you emotionally and draws you in, you feel for the characters and are awed by the events. If you like historical/medieval drama, watch El Cid. It is a classic.

I watched this on the big screen when I was very very young, but this epic film left an indellible impression on me. I have to consider this to be one of the best films I ever watched.

Heston and Loren made a beautiful pair in this epic. The transformation of Loren's hatred to love for Heston was a highlight of the show.

A few scenes that stood out in my mind was: 1. The jousting scene 2. The scene where Heston catapulted buns into the besieged city and won the heart of the people. 3. The epic fighting scene at the beach where arrows rained upon the shielded soldiers ...and who can forget the famous riding scene at the very end with the already dead Rodrigo tied to the mount riding out of the city that one last time. Combined with the underlying score, that was one of the most moving scenes of all times. Years later, when I happened upon the show on TV again, I still could not help but felt a little misty in my eyes when I watched that last scene.

I love Chralton Heston's roles. He was the very essence of a masculine, clever, smart, superb actor who could perform almost every role he got his hands to. He was absolutely mesmerizing as Moses in Ten Commandments, he was good in many other movies. Here he is not bad, to be honest, the thing is he cannot save this plodding dud of a film from mediocrity that it slowly plunges to in a course of endless 3 hours. The plot seems to be very trite and smacks more of a Shazam Orient Fables than that of a real history. Another big (I mean it B/I/G) mistake was Sophia Loren as a main female part. She is a fish out of her element here completely. The poses, the looks, the smiles, the faked sufferings all betray lack of depth and lack of genuine feeling. She is not even that attractive to be cool just for her looks. To sum it up, this is a rather middle-of-the-road effort, with all the mistakes and prolonged scenes that add more to drag and help not to develop.

In 1961 Anthony Mann's epic tale of the Spanish hero "El Cid" burst across the wide screens of theatres. This was the kind of film that 70mm was made for. Charlton Heston is Rodrigo de Bivar, and Sophia Loren is his legendary love, Chimene. Their course of love will not be a smooth one. When he kills her father as a matter of honor, she vows vengeance and sets in motion the series of events which will forever change their lives. The Christian Spaniards are ruled by local kingdoms each vying for rule of the nation. When one king challenges El Cid's monarch, Heston volunteers to fight to the death to determine the fate of the city of Calahorra, and at the same time vindicate himself of the treason he was accused of by Loren's father. This fight for Calahorra is one of the most memorable action sequences ever committed to film. It opens with Miklos Rozsa's heraldic fanfare as the two knights take their places on the jousting field. The two kings watch from either side. The ensuing duel is brutal with a predictable, but decisive outcome. The lovers are eventually married, but only to be separated again as El Cid is called to protect Spain from the marauding Moors swarming across the Mediterranean from Africa. The Spanish Moors join with the Cid to take the city of Valencia where the enemy will attack. It is here that one of the great battle scenes takes place, actually filmed in the shadow of the walled city of Peniscola on the coast of Spain. The two armies charge eachother in a cacaphony of horses, shouts and Rozsa's rousing musical score. The sky is darkened by the thousands of flying arrows streaking across to the enemy. This is the kind of movie that they just don't make anymore. What a pity! The final sequence shows the eerie onslaught of the Spanish army lead by the fallen El Cid strapped to his steed and causing the Moors to flee in terror at his seeming resurrection. Rozsa's organ music swells as El Cid rides into the sunset along the deserted beach and into immortality. In the mid 90's after many years of not being available, "El Cid" was shown again in its 70mm splendor. It was then released on video. The superb Criterion laserdisc version contains the full Technirama letterboxed image and a restored mult-channel soundtrack in Dolby Digital. An excellent supplementary section has interviews with Charlton Heston and others. Heston says that "El Cid" would have been an even more enduring classic if William Wyler ("Ben-Hur") had directed it. However, Anthony Mann has nothing to be ashamed of. Aside from some wooden acting and some scenery chewing here and there, the richness of the story and the elaborate production design, paired with the fine performance of Heston and Miklos Rozsa's impassioned score, surely place "El Cid" in the Hall of Fame of great film epics.

Charlton Heston spent much of the shoot worrying about the script and in his diary damned his co-star with faint praise as "a competent actress, and a star". Currently wowing them at 86 in 'La Vita Davanti a Se', producer Samuel Bronston only had Sophia Loren for the first ten weeks of filming and she makes no mention of director Anthony Mann in her memoirs. This is hardly surprising since her role requires little of her but to stand there and look magnificent, along with the rest of the film.

Robert Krasker's photography, (described by Charlton Heston as "one of the outstanding qualities of 'El Cid'") constantly makes the film a pleasure to look at; especially it's startling flashes of red throughout. The supporting cast is enlivened by Herbert Lom hiding behind a cloak as Ben Yussuf, a surprisingly saturnine Andrew Cruickshank as Loren's father. And I should like to have seen much more of lynx-eyed Genevieve Page as the naughty Queen Urraca.