Classic Epic Movies Collection (The 300 Spartans/Alexander The Great/Demetrius And The Gladiators/The Robe) (DVD 1961)
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The 300 Spartans - The futile yet inspiring stand of 300 Greek soldiers against the hugest army ever assembled in the ancient world inspired this typical example of Hollywood epic movie-making....
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The 300 Spartans - The futile yet inspiring stand of 300 Greek soldiers against the hugest army ever assembled in the ancient world inspired this typical example of Hollywood epic movie-making. King Leonidas of Sparta (Richard Egan), prevented by political squabbling from sending his entire army to defend the narrow pass of Thermopylae, sets out with his personal bodyguard to fight off the ambitious Persian king, Xerxes. Along the way are a pair of young lovers, scantily clad dancing girls, and treachery though a secret mountain path. The 300 Spartans, made in 1961, has an overstated cold war subtext--there's much talk of freedom vs. slavery--and there are a few too many shots of armoured men marching through the Greek countryside, but the historical conflict has a fundamentally stirring quality. Also featuring Sir Ralph Richardson (Dr. Zhivago, Dragonslayer) as a wily Athenian politician. --Bret Fetzer Alexander The Great - Richard Burton stars in Alexander the Great, a middling entry in the 1950s CinemaScope epic cycle. The film boasts excellent production values and a fine cast--including Frederic March, Claire Bloom, Harry Andrews, Stanley Baker, Peter Cushing and Michael Hordern--but it rarely comes to life other than as a big fat ancient Greek wedding of the talents of Burton and Bloom. They strike real dramatic sparks together, so much so they would be reunited in Look Back in Anger (1958) and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). The film's failures must be laid at the feet of writer, director and producer Robert Rossen, who never before or after helmed anything remotely on this scale; his best work would follow with the intimate The Hustler (1961). Rossen simply shows little sensibility for the epic, staging lavish but brief and rather pedestrian battles and somehow drawing from the usually mesmerising Burton a performance lacking the charisma essential to a great mil
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