everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

more than a classic , it is a beautiful film.that is its secret and basic virtue. a film about fundamental values more than image of a hero. and it is a precise lesson about making of a epic movie. not only for good performance, atmosphere, dialogs or fight scenes but for its special poetry who makes it different by another blockbusters of period. the theme is delicate - a national symbol and the Hollywood recipes is too clear. but in this case, a splendid puzzle appears. and the work of entire team, especially of Charlton Heston, makes each part to be almost perfect. it is not Ben Hur or Cleopatra. the ingredients seems be the same but it is only impression of first sigh. it is itself, after decades, after trends and evolution of artistic taste. so, a beautiful movie. love story, heroic scenes, delicate nuances. and something more. a secret ingredient. or, only, the shadow of a knight.

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 have 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 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.

Charlton Heston's most underrated movie. This is not only a great medieval movie, but a great war movie as well. The story takes place during the tumultuous Reconquista (Reconquest) era in Spain. A civil war has broken out between the Christians and the Moores, and who better to save the day than another epic hero played by Charlton Heston. This time he plays the legendary warrior El Cid, and yes, this is a 3+ hour movie. My only complaint is its length, because the story is superb and action-packed battles abound. There's also a really good one-on-one medieval combat scene that is awesomely choreographed. More people need to see this epic action movie, which is a pretty even mix of "Ben Hur" and "Kingdom of Heaven." It's a shame it has gone under the radar for so long. 3.5 out of 5 action rating

Historical epics were a popular genre in the fifties and early sixties, and the idea of basing one on Spanish history may have been prompted by the fact that many such films, although ostensibly set elsewhere, had actually been shot in Spain. "El Cid" is the story of the 11th century Castilian knight Don Rodrigo Díaz de Bivar, known as El Cid from the Arabic word for "Lord". It does, however, take some liberties with history, and some details are taken from two literary sources, the Spanish epic poem "El Cantar de Mio Cid" and Pierre Corneille's play "Le Cid". An example of Corneille's influence is the fact that the hero's wife Ximena (Jimena in modern spelling) is referred to throughout by the French form "Chimene".The plot is a complex one, involving several intertwined sub-plots. The first deals with Rodrigo's courtship of, and eventual marriage to, the lovely Chimene, a courtship made more difficult by the fact that he has been forced to fight a duel with, and to kill, her father in defence of his family honour. The second deals with Rodrigo's equally difficult relationship with his Royal masters, the Kings Ferdinand I, Sancho II and Alfonso VI of Castile. He remains loyal to the Crown even in the face of severe provocation, particularly from Alfonso who in this version of history is portrayed as a weak, treacherous and cowardly individual who seizes the crown by conniving at the murder of his elder brother Sancho. (Alfonso is known in Spain as "Alfonso the Valiant", which might suggest that the film's version of history is not the universally accepted one).The film's third theme is El Cid's defence of Spain against invasion by the Moorish Almoravid dynasty from North Africa. In this endeavour he has some unlikely allies, namely Spain's own Moorish rulers, who have as much to lose from the invasion as their Christian neighbours. This idea of Christians and Muslims fighting together against a common foe might seem like a romanticised one deriving from twentieth-century notions of political correctness, but in fact it is historically accurate, as the Almoravids did indeed invade Spain with the avowed aim of overthrowing the Emirs of Al-Andalus, whom they accused of following a heterodox form of Islam. Rodrigo is presented in the film as an apostle of religious toleration; his duel with Chimene's father arises after he spares the life of two Muslim Emirs in defiance of a Royal command that all captured Moors are to be slaughtered.More than any other actor, Charlton Heston has become identified with the epic style of film-making. It was a genre in which he excelled; he starred in three of what I regard as the four greatest epics ever made ("The Ten Commandments", "Ben-Hur" and "El Cid", with the fourth being Kubrick's "Spartacus", starring Kirk Douglas). Here he gives one of his finest performances. The script shows Rodrigo as a noble, idealised figure- courageous, loyal, generous to his friends, steadfast in love- yet as portrayed by Heston he remains a warm, living, breathing and recognisably human figure, unlike some idealised characters who resemble nothing so much as a cold, impossibly perfect white marble statue. The other outstanding performance, a chilling mixture of treachery and seductiveness, comes from the French actress Geneviève Page as Doña Urraca, the sister of Sancho and Alfonso and Chimene's rival for Rodrigo's love.There are, admittedly, one or two flaws, mostly connected with the plot line. It is never, for instance, explained why Rodrigo should seek to rescue Alfonso from the imprisonment which seems a just punishment for a man who has attempted to kill his brother and usurp the throne. Chimene appears to remain the same age throughout, unlike her husband who ages visibly in the course of a storyline spanning more than thirty years. (According to one account, this was due to the vanity of Sophia Loren, who did not want to play an older woman, something which might also explain why Rodrigo's daughters Sol and Elvira only appear as young children, even though in the "Cantar de Mio Cid" they are adults and their marriages play an important part in the story).Those, however, are minor matters. Heston expressed the view that the film would have been a better one had it been directed by William Wyler rather than Anthony Mann. That question cannot be proved either way; both men were great directors, and the film we actually have is a fine one, able to stand comparison with Wyler's own "Ben-Hur". The film is one of the grandest and noblest of the epics; it is sumptuous in its recreation of the splendours of mediaeval courtly life, and there are plenty of exciting moments, especially in the battle scenes. It is, however, more than just mere spectacle. It has a humane and intelligent script, and a particularly moving conclusion. It is perhaps the greatest-ever film about the Age of Chivalry, beating all the various versions of the Arthurian Legend. 9/10