Cynical Cinema

There were certain roles in the history of movies that could be played only by Charlton Heston. Moses, Ben-Hur, Michaelangelo, and El Cid. Heston was never much of an actor when it came to emoting. He was quite the actor, however, when it came to puffing out his chest and speechifying. He was also very adept at looking heroic, twisting his face into furious and righteous anger, and talking justice with his deep, powerful voice and square, stoic chin. Very good stuff, these Heston epics. I’m going to go ahead and assume that everyone has seen The Ten Commandments, because it’s all over TV at Easter time. I will also assume that everyone is aware of Ben-Hur, because it is one of those all-time classics that is on TV so often that it is difficult to miss. Perhaps the same goes for The Agony And The Ecstasy. And I will further make the assumption that virtually no one has seen El Cid, since I have never come across this epic on television or in the video store. The reason it hasn’t been in the video store is that it was not available on DVD. Until this coming Tuesday. El Cid is being released by Alliance Films on DVD in a glorious three-disc set this coming Tuesday. And it is a must-have for any epic film buff.

This is one of those sets that comes with everything. A booklet detailing the massive preparations for shooting this massive epic. A comic book from the 60s that takes us through the entire El Cid movie, such that we don’t even have to watch the film if we would rather take ten minutes to flip through a comic book. And it also has a written introduction to the film by Martin Scorcese, and a bunch of postcard-sized movie posters that nerds like me enjoy putting up on their walls. The El Cid posters are now up beside the similar ones I got in the special editions of The Good The Bad and The Ugly and To Kill A Mockingbird. The three-disc set includes some very cool special features - interviews, behind the scenes stuff, and an endurance-testing feature-length commentary. El Cid is more than three hours long, which means the commentary involves talking for more than three hours straight. That must have been tough.

El Cid is the true story of a Spanish hero named Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, who managed to unite Christian Spain with the Muslim Moors in order to repel an attack against Spain by an evil warlord, Ben Yussef (played wonderfully by Herbert Lom). It is the sort of role Heston was born to play, and the supporting cast is good as well. Watching a young Sophia Loren in the role of Heston’s wife, as they go through a love-hate relationship, certainly lends credence to the idea that she really didn’t start getting really hot until she hit her forties. Sure, she’s attractive in this movie, but the Sophia Loren I think of is far better looking, and also far older. I could go through the rest of the excellent cast too, but there are way too many to mention. In the 60s, you see, there was no CGI, and therefore when you see a crowd of thousands of people, or a battle involving thousands of soldiers, it is actually thousands of actors and extras, and not computer-generated! And that really makes a difference, much as some technophiles would have us believe it does not. The musical score is terrific, and the panoramic battle scenes must be seen in HD or at the very least on a large television in widescreen.

El Cid is not quite the cinematic achievement that are some of Heston’s other best works. It does not quite reach the heights of Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments. Director Anthony Mann, while he was a very capable director, never really lived up to his promise, and this may be his best film. (Also excellent were The Bend In The River and Winchester ‘73.) But really, El Cid bears the imprint of Saumel Bronston, the producer, as much if not more as it does the talents of Anthony Mann. Bronston followed up the massive production of El Cid with a few great films, such as King of Kings and The Fall of the Roman Empire, and for a few years was the king of the sweeping cinematic epic. Heston will always be the number one star of the biblical epic and this kind of gigantic film, but Mann will never be considered among the greats of the genre. That title could well go to David Lean, the man behind Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Doctor Zhivago. (This run of three consecutive movies is likely unparallelled in the history of cinema. Perhaps only Francis Ford Coppola comes close, with The Godfather, The Conversation, and The Godfather Part II.)

El Cid is not an all-time classic, but it certainly bears watching. And this three-disc set would be a fantastic addition to the collection of any true movie fanatic. Don’t miss out - it gets released by Alliance Films on Tuesday.

The greatest overactor of all time, Charlton Heston, has finally had that rifle pried out of his cold, dead hands. I loved Charlton Heston, his flagrant over-acting and his overly pompous persona shone through in even his most innocuous movie roles (with the exception of Bowling For Columbine, where he showed that playing himself he was actually a fairly regular human being. It was nice to see.) So here is my personal Top Ten list (movie people love Top Whatever Lists) of the greatest Heston movies:

#10: El Cid. Once again, Heston is over-the-top as the Spanish hero El Cid. Jesus-like in his goodness, Heston rallies feuding tribes to a common cause and saves the empire. Imagine Lawrence of Arabia with Heston instead of Peter O’Toole, and you have El Cid. Which is one reason that Heston will be remembered as a great actor, but not as a screen legend alongside the Brandos and the Oliviers and the Nicholsons. His presence would have made Lawrence of Arabia into a pretty good movie, instead of an all-time classic. Although El Cid is meant to be a larger than life character, Heston still seems to make him even bigger than that, and in no way touches upon the inner turmoil that must have driven the real man. Also, Sophia Loren shows up and she is smoking hot. A solid reason to watch this epic.

#9: The Agony and the Ecstasy. Heston, yet again, fails to find anything close to an emotional centre while playing Michelangelo, yet this sweeping epic is still strangely moving. At the core of the story is the battle waged between Michelangelo and the Pope (played wonderfully here by Rex Harrison). This movie drips with history - quite literally, as watercolours drip into Heston’s eyes while he paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And visually, it is one of the most impressive films of the era. It is a little too long, and the character development should be greater in a film of such length…or, there should BE some character development, but the sets and the costumes and the whole production design make up for it. Great historical drama.

#8: The Ten Commandments. Perhaps it’s the fact that I have seen it so very many times, every single Easter and occasionally in between, that prevents me from ranking this one higher. It is certainly a magnificent achievement by Cecil B. DeMille - some of the scenes are legendary, and I love the parting of the Red Sea. But it’s speeches like “oh Moses, Moses, you stubborn, adorable, splendid fool” that keep me cringing. And again, Moses needs no character development - he’s Moses. You know Moses, right? Good. Let’s proceed. I love Edward G. Robinson in this movie too, but somehow I keep coming back to DeMille. This is actually a remake of his own, earlier movie version of The Ten Commandments, and while it’s bigger, and more expensive, and more technologically advanced than the early one, it’s not necessarily better. Still a classic though.

#7: True Lies. OK, not a Heston movie as such. But he’s in there, playing Spencer Trilby, and I just want to stick True Lies in here because I think it’s a movie that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Anything involving Schwarzennegger will invariably be cut down at least a peg by most critics, simply because he is who he is. I mean, he did Commando. And Kindergarten Cop. However, I think in this movie he shows that he is the logical, (albeit Austrian and more muscular) follower of Heston’s. He does not emote well, he has little chance of creating a truly three-dimensional character, and yet he is always, whenever he is on the screen, larger than life. And True Lies remains a passed-over classic which deserves more recognition in the annals of action movies.

#6: Soylent Green. Spoiler alert - Soylent Green is people, and Heston is having none of it! One of his roles which required a little more acting and a little less speechifying, this is a very satisfying, bizarre-looking futuristic film. Part of a “trilogy” of future-sci-fi films Heston did that included The Omega Man (recently remade with Will Smith in I Am Legend) and of course, Planet of the Apes. The dark tone of the film and the great set design make this one well worth checking out.

#5: Planet Of The Apes. Some of the most hilarious over-acting of all time. “Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!” This one is an all-time Great Film, if only because of that final shot of the Statue of Liberty, which is a great early example of revelatory endings in movies. The direction is superb, and the clues that pile up throughout the movie are deftly strung together as the mystery unfolds, leaving Heston to deliver the ultimate over-acting climax in movie history. “You maniacs!”

#4: Will Penny. A tragically overlooked Western classic, starring Heston in one of his finest acting roles. He is an aging and poor cowboy who seets out with Lee Majors and Anthony Zerbe to find a job, but the three soon run afoul of a crazy bible-thumping outlaw and his even-crazier sons. Donald Pleasance is terrific as the bad guy, and Joan Hackett is great with Heston as the love interest. One of the most under-rated movies out there, and one of Heston’s best performances.

#3: The Omega Man. Heston is the last man alive in a post-apocalyptic world. Based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, and earlier filmed starring Vincent Price as “The Last Man on Earth”. This is the best of the Future sci-fi trilogy that also included Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green. Anthony Zerbe co-stars in this one as well, as the leader of the group of bloodthirsty half-human-half vampire weirdos who go after Heston. Rosalind Cash is sultry and magnificent as a woman who shows Heston that he may well NOT be the Last Man Alive.

#2: Ben-Hur. Heston’s only Oscar came for his performance in this epic, magnificent movie. This was the third screen version of the very-biblical novel by Lew Wallace, and it was easily the best. Stephen Boyd is terrific as Messala, Judah Ben-Hur’s boyhood friend and later nemesis. And Heston’s over-th-top, speechifying larger-than life acting has never been so a-propos as it is here. The chariot race is worth the price of the DVD alone - one of the greatest set pieces in motion picture history.

#1: Touch Of Evil. Not only Heston’s best acting job ever, this is also his greatest movie. Not only that, it is one of Orson Welles’ greatest movies, and that is saying a lot. Welles is both the director and a star in the film, playing a corrupt, obese, slovenly police chief in a Mexican border town. Heston is a Mexican policeman on his honeymoon who, along with his new bride (the fantastic Janet Leigh) run afoul of Welles’ Chief Hank Quinlan. Heston’s character, Mike Vargas, believes that Chief Quinlan has planted evidence to ensure a perfect conviction record in the past, and he believes that the current suspect in a bomb explosion case is being railroaded by Quinlan. A dark, brilliant, perfectly done film noir, this is a higly overlooked and truly magnificent movie that deserves a place in any list of the greatest film noir movies ever made.