At the Movies with Governor Tom: El Cid

I mean there's long overdue, and then there's looooong overdue. El Cid--finally, at looooong last--is getting the DVD treatment. Released today, it's the first title under the Weinstein brothers' new DVD imprint called Miriam, named after their mom. In honor of the release, the ArcLight Hollywood screened El Cid last night on a brand new print in 70mm Technirama Technicolor. Man, what a treat, ya know? Mind you, I'd never seen El Cid in my life but always wanted to. It's one of those classics that you've always wanted to see, always known you should see, but hadn't gotten around to seeing because of a little annoyance called life.

What made last night extra special were the in-person guests who stuck around afterward to chat about the film. I'm not talking about anyone directly involved with making this bad boy epic. Nah, they're mostly dead now. I'm talking about their progeny. You've got Bill Bronston, son of El Cid producer Samuel Bronston. He was the main guy, who helped introduce the screening with Los Angeles Times critic Pete Hammond and then helped moderate the Q&A afterward. Then you had Nina Mann, daughter of El Cid director Anthony Mann. I also got to see Juliet Rozsa, daughter of Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa, who scored the film. The fourth and final guest was this short stocky writer named Mel Martin. His connection to this thing was that last November he published a book about Samuel Bronston entitled The Magnificent Showman: The Epic Films of Samuel Bronston.

El Cid was based on the life of this guy named, you guessed it, El Cid. Actually that wasn't his real name. Dude's name was Rodrigo Diaz, and his claim to fame was that he was a brilliant military and political leader who helped teach the Christians and Moors of Spain how to get along. The name "El Cid" comes from the word for "chief" in a Spanish Arabic dialect. At the peak of his career, El Cid had an army at his command that consisted of both Christian and Moorish troops, something unheard of at the time. What's a Moor, you might ask? Basically a Moor was a Spanish-born Muslim of either Arabic or especially Berber (i.e. North African) descent. I say especially Berber because the word Moor comes from the Ancient Greek word for "black" or "very dark."

El Cid lived from around 1044 to 1099. Spain at this time was, to put it subtly, a God damned mess, a blood-drenched dog pile of religious quibbling of a Christian-versus-Muslim nature. Golly shucks, sound familiar? Anyway, it was even worse than that. Both the Christian and Moorish camps were riven from within with more in-fighting than an episode of The Sopranos. In other words, Spain was the geographical equivalent of a piñata, all beat to shit with cracks and divisions all over the place. What made matters hairier was that you had Muslims from North Africa who wanted to make Spain an all-Muslim nation. In a sense, Spain wasn't much different from the rest of Europe. Religious conflict was spilling the blood of just about everyone and their cousin across that beleaguered continent. El Cid, although Christian, wasn't trying to conquer all Moors everywhere. That's what set him apart. He saw that, like Christians, Moors were people too and were just trying to get through this great puzzle called life. He helped them get along, and it got him in just as much trouble with his Christian brethren as it did with the Moors.

I won't give the whole film away. At three solid hours, it's too long in the first place. And secondly, why would I want to spoil everything there is to know about this gem? Here are the basics. The film starts in the year 1080, when Rodrigo Diaz is in his mid thirties or so, which is actually about the age Charlton Heston was when he made this. First, we meet the film's villain, some warlord named Ben Yussef who lives in North Africa and wants to take over all of Spain. He just needs the help of various emirs (i.e. chieftains) who are already set up in Spain. We never see Ben Yussef's face by the way. We see his angry eyes, but the rest of his face and head are always bound up in black garb.

So anyway, while on his way to his wedding one day, our hero Rodrigo comes across a Christian town under attack from some of the emirs working for Ben Yussef. Rodrigo wins handily, but when the citizens of the town demand that he execute the emirs, Rodrigo's like, "Nah. I think I'll let them live. And not only that, I won't even take them prisoner. Y'all emirs can go on home now." The emirs are so grateful that they swear to be his ally whenever he may need them. One of them right then and there dubs Rodrigo El Cid. Obviously this act of clemency won't sit well with the high-ups in this part of Spain.

The part of Spain I'm referring to is the kingdom of Castile. Remember what I said earlier, right? Spain is a fractured land, split into innumerable independent principalities. Rodrigo lives in Castile, which at this time is ruled by this one old guy named Ferdinand. Anyway, remember how I said Rodrigo was on his way to a wedding? Well, the woman he's all set to marry is a hottie named Jimena, played by Sophia Loren. Jimena's dad is this important guy named Count Gomez. Besides being a count, Gomez is the King's Champion. I'm not entirely sure what exactly being the King's Champion entails, but put it this way, Count Gomez is someone who can talk to King Ferdinand pretty much whenever he wants.

Rodrigo's engagement to Jimena runs into a little roadblock, namely that he allowed those emirs to walk away unpunished after that battle at the very beginning of the film. I cannot emphasize enough how pissed off everyone is back at King Ferdinand's castle. Even Rodrigo's dad Don Diego, who used to be the King's Champion, isn't so sure his boy did the right thing. Still, family's family, and Dad sticks by him. Unfortunately he's the only one who does. Count Gomez demands that his future son-in-law be reprimanded in some way. When Don Diego defends his boy in front of the court, Count Gomez calls him a name or something. I forget what he says, but in the parlance of the day, he dishonors the name of Rodrigo's pop.

Rodrigo is livid. He doesn't give two shits if he's about to marry Count Gomez's baby girl or not. An insult's an insult, and it must be avenged. So he challenges his future father-in-law to a duel and promptly kills him. Naturally this throws a damper on his engagement. Not only does Jimena change her mind about marrying Rodrigo, but she plots to have him killed. 'Member those emirs Rodrigo saved at the beginning? They help foil Jimena's plot.

Believe it or not, Rodrigo and Jimena do get married, but her poor mind is a tornado. You see, Rodrigo in the meanwhile has been redeeming himself in the eyes of King Ferdinand. In fact, he even becomes the new King's Champion after winning this one jousting contest that determined the king's claim to some chunk of land. And it wasn't a Moor claiming this land, but another Christian ruler. You see what I mean by in-fighting? Anyway, so Rodrigo's become fairly popular now with the Castilians, but he did kill Jimena's father. So Jimena consigns herself to some convent out in Nowheresville where she studied as a youngster.

Meanwhile, King Ferdinand dies, and his kingdom is threatened with internal division between his two sons, Sancho and Alfonso. The main bad guy, Ben Yussef, takes advantage of the situation and has Sancho murdered. But just because Alfonso becomes king doesn't mean all's well in Castile. He has a major falling out with Rodrigo, so the ol' Cid Man goes off to his wife at the nunnery. The two of them decide to live in peaceful exile, away from all the noise. By now Jimena loves her man again. In fact, they sort of do it in this barn one night, on their way to a new life. The next morning, lying in each other's arms, they talk about the new life they'll set up for themselves, having a family, just taking it easy.

When Rodrigo steps out of the barn, he finds himself confronted by hordes of troops who want to follow him. They say he can't step down yet. Spain needs him. Yada yada yada. As you might imagine, after the night he just had, the last thing Rodrigo wants to do is get back into the military arena. But he's got all these people depending on him. So he reluctantly decides to take charge again. Jimena, meanwhile, goes back to that nunnery. This time, she's pregnant.

The years pass. El Cid has become older, grayer, bearded, and just as legendary as ever. Ben Yussef, still clad head to toe in black scarves and whatnot, has decided it's time to make landfall in Valencia, the southern most region in Spain. Valencia's already in Moorish hands, so he should be in like Flint. From there, he can sweep up Spain and make it a 100% Muslim theocracy.

Uh, I don't think so. El Cid's got other plans. First, he goes to that convent to pick up his wife Jimena, whom he hasn't seen in years. In that time she's given birth to their twin daughters, who are now five or so. So Jimena and the girls accompany El Cid and his Christian-Moorish army down to Valencia. He makes short work of the emir in charge there and takes up residence in the castle. Ben Yussef is determined, though. The stage is set for a final climactic battle on the beaches of Valencia.

That might seem like a detailed synopsis to you, but believe me, it doesn't come within a light year of doing justice to the epic scale of this film. When I heard that this picture only garnered three Oscar nominations, and didn't win any of them, I was a drop jawed. Okay, maybe it's a bit long at the end. A good 20 minutes or so could've been lopped off the Valencia sequence. But still, most of the films that win awards today don't hold a candle to El Cid.

When he introduced the screening, L.A. Times critic Pete Hammond said El Cid was the victim of terrible timing. Released in December of 1961, it had to go toe to toe with two other Academy-baiting juggernauts: West Side Story and Judgment at Nuremberg. The latter ended up winning Best Actor for Maximilian Schell and Best Screenplay Adaptation for Abby Man. But really, this Oscar season belonged to West Side Story. The thing racked up 10 trophies, including Best Picture and Best Director, both of which went to Robert Wise. Can anyone say sweep? What was lemon juice in El Cid's wound was that its leading lady, Sophia Loren, won Best Actress....but not for El Cid. That same year she played the lead in, and won the trophy for, a flick called Two Women. The three nominations for El Cid were Best Art Direction, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for "Love Theme from El Cid (The Falcon and the Dove)". The latter two were both nominations for the Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa. Like I said, though, it won none of those. The Art Direction prize went to--can you guess?--West Side Story. Both the Best Original Score and Best Original Song prizes went to Breakfast at Tiffany's. Henry Mancini collected both of those. The original song was "Moon River". Boy, what a time to be a movie fan, eh?

Pete also shared a bit of backstory gossip before the movie started which sort of made the movie unintentionally funny at times. During the filming of El Cid, Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren didn't get along. Well, I mean they got along for the most part. It's just that Charlton wasn't very committed to doing those romantic scenes. He'd go through the motions and everything, but he wouldn't put his heart into it. Naturally Sophia took it personally, as if he was implying something was wrong with her. Even weirder, Charlton would oftentimes not make eye contact with her during those same scenes. And again, Sophia couldn't figure out why. Was something wrong with her? "She was tearing her hair out," Pete said, trying to figure out what Charlton's deal was. In his memoir many years later, Charlton said the reason he was looking past Sophia instead of at Sophia was because he was looking toward the future. Huh? Was he foreseeing Soylent Green or something?

And the last thing Pete talked about before the lights went down was the writing, something of obvious interest to me. Bottom line? The two writers who got credit for writing El Cid didn't actually write the script that ended up being used. Fred Frank and Phil Yordan wrote this script about El Cid, right? Producer Sam Bronston and director Anthony Mann liked it enough all right, but Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren didn't like it at all. And so Sam Bronston made a decision somewhat radical for the time: He brought in a writer who'd been blacklisted to help with revisions. The writer's name was Ben Barzman. Sam didn't hire Ben because he disagreed with the blacklisting or because he was trying to stick it to the Man or anything. His son Bill, who was one of the talkers after the screening, couldn't emphasize enough how apolitical his dad was. Sam Bronston was an opportunist, pure and simple. When he had a goal, he'd bend every fiber of his will toward achieving that goal. So he hired Ben Barzman for no other reason than for his writing talent. When Ben came aboard, you know what he did? He took Fred and Phil's draft, chucked it into the wastebasket, and started all over from page one, line one, FADE IN. And so it was Ben Barzman's script that convinced Charlton and Sophia to do it, but Ben never got the credit for it. No, really, to this day that's the case. If and when you watch the movie, you'll see in the credits that Fred and Phil wrote the script, but now you know better.

Ben Barzman's widow was actually at last night's screening, but she bolted as soon as it was over. Too bad, as I would've loved to hear what she had to say about her late hubby's secret involvement and what he thought about never getting official credit for writing this masterpiece. As it was, we still had four peeps talk to us afterward. Pete Hammond stayed in his seat and let Bill Bronston handle the moderating as folks in the audience posed questions to him as well as to Nina Mann, Juliet Rozsa, and Mel Martin.

Here's an interesting fact about Bill Bronston: Besides being Sam's son, he's the great nephew of Leon Trotsky. And I tell you, he's doing a great job carrying his great uncle's political torch. Bill admitted he's an extreme leftist. In general he's very much an idealist. While still a med student in the sixties, he was already advocating universal healthcare. The Governator actually just tried to pass a universal healthcare bill, but the state legislature rejected it. Personally I couldn't disagree more with Communism as a viable economic policy, but I still thought Bill was a great speaker. His voice was very soft, almost soothing, and he was always sure to make eye contact with everyone in the audience. There was a director's chair set up for him next to the other three guests, but I'm pretty sure he never used it. He stood with his mic cradled in both hands a few feet in front of the chairs, and a little to the side too when one of the other guests was answering a question.

Bill sounds like he's the exact opposite of his father. The way both Bill and Mel Martin told it, Sam Bronston was a red-, white-, and blue-blooded capitalist. He had no interest in politics at all and just had this insatiable thirst to produce great grand epic films no matter the cost, especially to him. And believe me, it did come at quite a bit of cost. What he'd do, right? He'd sell the distribution rights before even making the movie, and then use that money to cover production costs. He also borrowed tons of money and sunk himself into enormous debt. His empire rose and fell in a relatively short amount of time, but did he make the most of it or what. Dude churned out six films of mostly an epic nature in seven years. Seven years! I mean, it took Paul Thomas Anderson five years just to make There Will Be Blood. In seven measly years, Sam churned out stuff like John Paul Jones, King of Kings, El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Fall of the Roman Empire, and Circus World. Good God, man. Bill was going through high school and college at this time, and it's no wonder he never got to see Dad.

El Cid cost seven million dollars to make, not a sum to look down your nose at in '61. Of that amount, one mil went to Sophia Loren, $800k to Charlton, $200k to Sam, and the remaining five mil spread out to everyone else. Seeing as how Sam literally used a cast of thousands for those huge battle scenes, and shot this whole thing on location in Spain (read: the cast and crew needed hotel accommodations for months), that five million must've been spread beyond thin.

Besides paying the people, Sam needed money for no less than shitloads of film stock. If the final cut checked in at three hours, how long do you think the rough cut was? Let me tell you what I mean. Early in the film, El Cid has a jousting contest. It's only ten minutes long or so, let's say a thousand feet of film. You know how many feet of film they used to shoot it? That one measly scene? One hundred...thousand. Yes, you read that right. The number one followed by five zeroes. For what turned out to be ten minutes in a 180-minute film. God bless the editor, that's all I've got to say.

Here's the deal with Sam and Spain. Before El Cid, Sam produced John Paul Jones and King of Kings. Both were filmed entirely in Spain. While the Spanish government was grateful for Sam's injecting all that dough into the economy, they wondered if he'd ever make a movie that was actually about Spain. So that's when he went shopping around for ideas and eventually came across Fred Frank's story treatment for an epic about El Cid. Why film in Spain at all, you ask? I mean it is a good question. At the time Spain was still a fascist state ruled by General Franco. And now here was Sam making El Cid, a movie written by a Communist. Again, Sam was apolitical. He couldn't've cared less if the Easter Bunny was ruling Spain. The reason he made his films there was that it was cheaper, plain and simple.

Still, these films were epic, and much money was needed. Thank God Sam could turn on the charm or else, even with pre-selling distribution rights, he still wouldn't've had enough. He needed investors. One of the investors he charmed the dough out of was none other than Pierre Du Pont of the Du Pont chemical company. Pierre turned out to be instrumental not only to Sam's rise but also to Sam's fall. You see, El Cid was enormously successful, perhaps not with the Academy, but certainly at the box office. It made a fortune. Unfortunately, it was the last of Sam's films to do so. The three films he made afterward all flopped. What's worse, he walked away and left Pierre to handle the monster debt the flops left in their wake. Understandably pissed off beyond measure, Pierre made it his mission in life to make sure Sam never made another movie again. Suffice it to say his mission went off without a hitch.

And so Sam Bronston's life ended on a terribly depressing note. His golden years saw him dirt poor and living in section eight housing in Houston. Then he came down with Alzheimer's. Poor Bill had to put his medical career on hold to take care of Dad until he passed away at the age of 85, just after New Year's 1994.

Mel Martin expanded on the whole Charlton-butting-heads-with-Sophia deal. First of all, Charlton had been fairly adept thus far in his career at alienating his leading ladies. He didn't treat them horribly or anything, but similar to the way he resisted establishing any chemistry with Sophia, he didn't treat them with much respect. Bill piped in at one point to talk about the makeup jobs in El Cid, or lack thereof in Sophia's case, which only exacerbated the rift between the two. When you see the film, you'll notice that Charlton's made up to look older as time passes. The real El Cid was in his fifties when he died, and that's pretty much how Charlton looks during the last hour or so, when he's in Valencia. Sophia Loren, in stark contrast, looks angelic and gorgeous all the way through the film. Charlton resented that, Bill said.

Mel also talked about how Charlton's dislike of Sophia not only influenced the course of Sam Bronston's future projects but also indirectly illustrated the lengths to which Sam went to produce his epics. With El Cid in the can, Sam wanted his next opus to be The Fall of the Roman Empire, and he wanted Charlton and Sophia in the lead roles of Livius and Lucilla. He assumed he'd get the two of them again and so proceeded to have the entire Roman Forum set built to scale. I mean that literally. Sam spared no expense to have the entire Forum reproduced exactly as it had been in antiquity. By the time the set was finished, after months of hard labor, Sam got word that Charlton had no desire to work with Sophia again, but he was interested in starring in another of Sam's projects still in development: 55 Days at Peking. So you know what Sam did? To appease Charlton? He had that entire Roman Forum set torn down, and in its place had built an exact replica of the Forbidden City. No, really, and to scale too, just as he'd done with the Forum. Amazing, isn't it? Dude let nothing stop him. 55 Days at Peking, by the way, is about the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 China. For his female lead this time, Charlton got to work with Ava Gardner. Poor devil. Sophia Loren. Ava Gardner. How did he ever survive? Oh, and for the character of Livius in The Fall of the Roman Empire, Sam went to Stephen Boyd, who'd played Charlton's childhood friend and adult rival a few years earlier in Ben-Hur.

Someone in the audience (I think it was Pete Hammond from the Times, or at least someone in his party) wondered why The Fall of the Roman Empire was a commercial failure. He couldn't rave enough about the performances of Christopher Plummer as Commodus and Alec Guinness as Marcus Aurelius, and how they were far superior to Joaquin Phoenix and Richard Harris, who played those same two characters in Gladiator. That film, of course, was hugely popular both commercially and critically. Do you remember how it swept the Oscars? It scored five trophies, and another seven nominations, including one for Joaquin. Bill said that, in his opinion, The Fall of the Roman Empire was too political and preachy. It forgot about the golden rule of just telling the story, and letting any message within the story come out organically. It was especially disheartening to Bill because he'd seen a rough cut of the film with his dad, and he loved it. There were all kinds of great scenes that actually told the story and weren't trying to shove the movie's obvious message down your throat. And then, when the final cut was released, all of those scenes were gone. Bill said he was being literal. Each and every one of his favorite scenes, the scenes that had emotion and that just told the story, was gone, edited out.

Talk eventually turned to El Cid director Anthony Mann. His daughter Nina, who looked to be in her fifties or so, had fond memories of going to Spain with Dad to scout locations for El Cid. It was just the two of them in a Jeep or something, driving all over the Spanish countryside to look at castles and whatnot. Those castles you see in the film, by the way, are real castles. Sam may have been nutty about reproducing the Forum and the Forbidden City, but he wouldn't build ginormous sets if he could use the real thing.

Mel cited Anthony Mann as a great example of how your fortunes can change for the better when you least expect it, when you're at your absolute nadir. You see, before Stanley Kubrick was hired to direct Spartacus, Anthony Mann was supposed to direct it. He lasted all of two weeks. According to Mel, he wanted Spartacus to be a three-dimensional character. You know, a real person and not just some Rambo fighter guy with loin cloths and cans of whoop-ass. Well, that latter version was exactly what Kirk Douglas wanted. And it was Kirk who got his way. Just to show you that things happen for a reason, though, being fired from Spartacus meant Anthony could now direct Cimarron with Glenn Ford and Maria Schell. And then that led to El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire. The latter film didn't make much money, as I've said, but it was a healthy paycheck for Anthony. Already in his late fifties at that point, with dozens of films on his resume, Anthony only made two more films after Roman Empire before he passed away at age 60.

And finally Juliet Rozsa got to talk about her father, the brilliant Hungarian composer Dr. Miklos Rozsa. Like Nina, Juliet got to go to Spain with her dad. They went well before the start of production, as her dad wanted to dive into researching just what kind of music Spaniards listened to during the 11th century. Then, when actually composing the score, Dad would sit at the piano for hours at a stretch, experimenting with various melodies that would be flavored with an 11th century Spanish style (whatever that means). Juliet said that both she and her brother entertained the idea of following in Dad's footsteps, but Miklos was just too demanding, not to speak of intimidating. Seriously, if you haven't heard of Dr. Rozsa, you should know that the man was sort of already considered a genius during his lifetime. So anyway, Juliet and her bro eventually said forget it, they wouldn't even bother pursuing musical careers. However, she did say that both of her daughters play music professionally. I think one or both play the violin. It's easier for them since their pop-pop isn't around to lay down the law.

It was midnight when the whole program was finished. Mind you, the sell-out crowd was seated by seven. Sure, I was pooped, and getting up before dawn as I do, I knew today would be a long day. Still, this turned out to be an exceptional treat. The ArcLight hadn't advertised these in-person guests, and I had no idea El Cid was only just now coming out on DVD. I'd always meant to throw it onto my Netflix queue, but as with who knows how many other classics, I just hadn't gotten around to it (not that it would have mattered). I go through my Netflix DVDs like water (I'm on the four-disc plan), but I tend to be kind of picky about which DVDs I'll actually buy. I have to be convinced that I'll want to take it out and watch it now and again, no matter how many times I've already seen it. Don't you know that El Cid now falls into that category. Forget putting it on my queue. If last night's event was supposed to convince me to go out and buy the thing, I'm afraid it worked and then some.