El Cid (Two-Disc Deluxe Edition) (The Miriam Collection)
starring: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Andrew Cruickshank, Barbara Everest, Carlo Giustini
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Product Description:
Movie DVD
Amazon.com essential video:
Technically ambitious but artistically underwhelming, this 1961 epic by Anthony Mann (Man of the West) stars Charlton Heston as an 11th-century hero who drives the Moors from Spain. The film has been described as "glum," and that is indeed apt for a story that focuses so much on its central character's losses in the face of his simultaneous, mythic approbation. Then again, Mann has always been interested in the hidden weaknesses in prevailing myths, so that's not unusual. What is unusual in El Cid is the degree to which technology takes over his filmmaking, as it does here with so many grandiose and bravura moments with a roving camera that don't add up to anything beyond spectacle. As an achievement of Hollywood's technical advancements in the postwar years, and also as part of the filmographies of Mann and Heston, the film is well worth a look. But it is not the artistic equal of other epics of its day, such as Lawrence of Arabia. --Tom Keogh
Movie DVD
Amazon.com essential video:
Technically ambitious but artistically underwhelming, this 1961 epic by Anthony Mann (Man of the West) stars Charlton Heston as an 11th-century hero who drives the Moors from Spain. The film has been described as "glum," and that is indeed apt for a story that focuses so much on its central character's losses in the face of his simultaneous, mythic approbation. Then again, Mann has always been interested in the hidden weaknesses in prevailing myths, so that's not unusual. What is unusual in El Cid is the degree to which technology takes over his filmmaking, as it does here with so many grandiose and bravura moments with a roving camera that don't add up to anything beyond spectacle. As an achievement of Hollywood's technical advancements in the postwar years, and also as part of the filmographies of Mann and Heston, the film is well worth a look. But it is not the artistic equal of other epics of its day, such as Lawrence of Arabia. --Tom Keogh
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- El Cid
Exellent ordering system and arrived earlier than expected. Will use again. Move was exellent. I had not seen it but heard a lot about it. Very worthwhile movie to watch.
Rating: 
- Teaching tool - El Cid
I teach middle schoolers medieval history and like to show this film as a way of explaining some feudal issues and ideas about the Reconquista.Its got pretty tame combat sequences.Only problem is that it is long so you will want to use the scene selections.
Rating: 
- NOT a great epic by any stretch.
El Cid should be grouped with company such as "Land of the Pharaohs" and not "Lawrence of Arabia." This is an overwrought bore of a film with a lousy performance by Heston and a typically atrocious showing by the no-talent Sophia Loren. But I'll place the lion's share of the blame on the director Anthony Mann, whom it would seem was dismissed for good reason from helming "Spartacus."
El Cid's fragmented screenplay progresses in fits and starts; obviously the writer and producers were ... Read More
Rating: 
- Hollywood at its finest
I first saw this movie as a child, yes,it is Hollywood at it 60s finest. Very entertaining even if the costumes and sets are a little to perfect for the actual time period.
Rating: - El Cid
The Deluxe package of El Cid has tons of info that is usually associated with these kinds of issues.The film itself is simply geogeous and from a time when the "cast of thousands" were real people and not digitally produced.The story itself is a bit weak, expecially toward the very end, (there will no plot reveals here), but the sweeping tale of Rodrigo Bovar is so romantic and so beautiful, it makes one yearn for the days when the movie screens were so much bigger than todays multiplex.I watched ... Read More
- El CidExellent ordering system and arrived earlier than expected. Will use again. Move was exellent. I had not seen it but heard a lot about it. Very worthwhile movie to watch.
- Teaching tool - El CidI teach middle schoolers medieval history and like to show this film as a way of explaining some feudal issues and ideas about the Reconquista.Its got pretty tame combat sequences.Only problem is that it is long so you will want to use the scene selections.
- NOT a great epic by any stretch.El Cid should be grouped with company such as "Land of the Pharaohs" and not "Lawrence of Arabia." This is an overwrought bore of a film with a lousy performance by Heston and a typically atrocious showing by the no-talent Sophia Loren. But I'll place the lion's share of the blame on the director Anthony Mann, whom it would seem was dismissed for good reason from helming "Spartacus."
El Cid's fragmented screenplay progresses in fits and starts; obviously the writer and producers were ... Read More
- Hollywood at its finestI first saw this movie as a child, yes,it is Hollywood at it 60s finest. Very entertaining even if the costumes and sets are a little to perfect for the actual time period.
- El CidThe Deluxe package of El Cid has tons of info that is usually associated with these kinds of issues.The film itself is simply geogeous and from a time when the "cast of thousands" were real people and not digitally produced.The story itself is a bit weak, expecially toward the very end, (there will no plot reveals here), but the sweeping tale of Rodrigo Bovar is so romantic and so beautiful, it makes one yearn for the days when the movie screens were so much bigger than todays multiplex.I watched ... Read More
