El Cid **** (1961, Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone) – Classic Movie Review 1851

Director Anthony Mann’s 1961 historical epic for producer Samuel Bronston stars Charlton Heston in one of his most famous heroic roles as the 11th-century Spanish warrior Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar – El Cid.

Sophia Loren also stars and she looks lovely in one of her most famous romantic roles as the fair lady Jimena whom El Cid naturally loves and takes as his wife.

Heston gives a mighty, athletic turn as El Cid who leads his people against Moorish aggressors.in this vast-scale, good-looking epic, with a spectacular siege finale, astounding visuals in Robert Krasker’s striking widescren cinematography and a rousing score by the great Miklos Rozsa. The movie is a famous relic from another era of film-making. In truth, El Cid is dated and slow-going in places over a very long running time of 184 minutes.

On the plus side there’s a well-used big budget with the money up there on screen, and much stirring action. On the minus side some of Frederic M Frank and Philip Yordan’s dialogue is sticky, giving the actors problems, and there is not very much in the way of impressive acting from the two principals in what admittedly are no-acting-required performances, or from the mostly merely decorative Genevieve Page, John Fraser and Gary Raymond. However, the support performances come to the rescue, with the star character actors – Herbert Lom, Raf Vallone, Frank Thring, Michael Hordern – much more animated than the leading stars.

Hurd Hatfield and Massimo Serato also appear.

Nevertheless, with all its faults, El Cid is still hugely impressive, informative and entertaining.

The score was Oscar-nominated, as was Rozsa’s song ‘The Falcon and the Dove’. The 1993 restored version runs even longer at 200 minutes, but the film is in very good shape again physically, both sound and vision.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1851

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