El Cid

El Cid (1961) starring Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren. Directed by Anthony Mann. Don Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, also known as El Cid (Heston) rises to power, marries the beautiful Chimene (Loren). Based on the true story of a Spanish national hero, this is a grand historical epic. It's obviously a big-budget extravaganza, and one can see all the money that was spent up on the screen. This DVD also has copious Extras, including a making-of feature and a behind-the-scenes featurette. Amazingly, one of the Extras reveals that Heston and Loren despised each other! I found the movie, despite its excessive length of over three hours, to be eminently watchable and emotionally rewarding. A really good film. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: A-   

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great (1956) starring Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom. Over two hours long, this failed epic spends far too much time on Alexander's intrigues in Greece, doesn't have enough time left over to devote to his conquests and death. The script has many holes in it, and the acting is only so-so. Burton, who was about 30 when the film was made, is too old for the part of Alexander, who died at the age of 33. Altogether, a very disappointing film about a grand subject. (Subtitles are available in English, as well as closed captions.) Grade: C

Alexander Nevsky

Alexander Nevsky (1938) starring a cast of Russians from the 1930s. Leonard Maltin calls this movie a masterpiece, but he is way off the mark. The DVD is terrible. It is not indexed, so you can't stop the film to take a break without losing your place. It's in Russian with English subtitles, and the subtitles are illegible about half the time. The sound quality is terrible, and the black-and-white picture is not much better. The plot concerns a Russian effort in the 13th century to repel an invasion by Teutonic (German) knights, an odd parallel considering what was about to happen in Europe at the time the film was made. The movie is hyper-patriotic on behalf of Russia. The acting is so-so, and the script is quite clumsy. It was not an enjoyable viewing experience. Grade: D

Troy

Troy (2004) starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Diane Kruger, Eric Bana, Rose Byrne, Peter O'Toole, Sean Bean. "Inspired by" Homer's Iliad, Troy tells a story that will be familiar to anyone who was paying attention in school. Prince Paris of Troy (Bloom) steals Helen (Kruger), the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, and takes her back to Troy with him. The furious Menelaus gathers the forces of Greece to sail across the Aegean Sea and attack Troy, a city whose walls have withstood all assaults for untold hundreds of years. Pitt plays Achilles, the nearly invulnerable warrior who fights for the Greeks, and Bana plays Hector, elder prince of Troy, who ends up fighting Achilles. It's an epic movie told on a grand scale, and as I recall it lost money at the box office. I found it pretty entertaining, though a little long at two hours and forty-three minutes. (English subtitles are furnished on the disc, as well as closed captions.) Grade: B+