El Cid Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		2.5

El Cid Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 25, 2023

Note: Fans of El Cid have been messaging me for years asking if I have any information on a (relatively?) decent release of the film on Blu-ray. It looks like those of us who have a soft spot for this often sprawling epic may be in luck with a recent Japanese release which I'll hopefully be reviewing soon. I'm starting with this pretty lackluster UK release, which seems to be one of several middling Blu-ray offerings in various regions of this notable piece of film history and historical film. (It also looks like the Japanese Blu-ray release is region free, unlike this Region B locked release.)

Martin Scorsese, where are you when we really need you? Kind of unbelievably, it's been around thirty years since Scorsese's highly touted restoration of El Cid screened in 1993, one which was met with less than universal acclaim at the time, perhaps suggesting that someone needed to return to the drawing board. One way or the other, here we are, decades later, without this or in fact any of Samuel Bronston's amazing productions available in upgraded high definition presentations, at least in Region A. This UK disc is just one of several non Region A releases this particular Bronston film has had on Blu-ray, and at least a couple of Bronston's other huge epics have also appeared in other regions, but judging by the look of this one, no one has bothered to actually release a properly restored version of any of the really rather remarkable Bronston productions in Region A. 1961 was arguably the high point of Bronston's producing career, a year he brought out two spectacularly successful epics, the film currently under discussion and King of Kings. Both films made gorgeous use of Bronston's prescient "Hollywood in Spain" production approach, and both films shared at least some production personnel, including scenarist Philip Yordan and perhaps most unforgettably composer Miklós Rózsa, who contributed two of his most profoundly gorgeous scores for the films. It's probably humorously ironic that both films took liberties with the lives of their real life focal characters, but if historians may quibble with the relative amounts of fact and fiction in El Cid, few will be able to find fault with the film's really stupendous visual sweep and star power.

If Bronston was willing to undertake the probably inherently impossible task of bringing the life of Jesus to the screen in King of Kings, the obstacles set before him in bringing the life of one Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (Charlton Heston) to the screen may have been no less daunting. While El Cid, as Rodrigo commonly became known, probably doesn't have the "name value" of the person Christians worship as God incarnate, quite interestingly for both Spanish Christians and Muslims, the memory of El Cid can be equally venerated. That's actually one fascinating subtext of the film that probably could have received a bit more emphasis, and in fact this version of events perhaps expectedly casts El Cid as a quasi-Christian knight beating back villainous attacks by the Moors.

El Cid also works in historically questionable aspects involving his would be wife, Chimene (Sophia Loren), not to mention a host of interwoven subplots that cast the Spanish nobility of the time as cousins to some of Shakespeare's scheming British royals. That includes brother and sister Alfonso VI (John Fraser) and Doña Urraca (Geneviève Page). Herbert Lom is the chief Muslim baddie, Ben Yusuf, in a characterization that is considerably more nuanced than the at least somewhat similar character of Mahdi portrayed by Laurence Olivier in Khartoum, and Raf Vallone offers El Cid even more troubles as Count Ordóñez, initially a combatant but ultimately an ally.

If the story is way too melodramatic and labyrinthine for its own good, and the film struggles to support the weight of an outsized "roadshow" running time, the production is graced by some stunning cinematography by Robert Krasker and that aforementioned luscious score by Rózsa, who received two Academy Award nominations for score and song (that was the year of the Breakfast at Tiffany's juggernaut in the music nominations, and Henry Mancini took home both statuettes).

El Cid Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

El Cid is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Anchor Bay with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Judging from both the general appearance of this presentation as well as the supplements included, my hunch is this has to be based off the same old and fairly inferior master that provided what was at the time the best standard definition presentation of the film, one of several "deluxe editions" of Bronston epics that came in elaborately packaged boxes with a lot of supplements and non disc swag. What was at least relatively acceptable for the DVD era just doesn't meet contemporary expectations, and even given the fact that this particular Blu-ray is now quite ancient by current day standards, the image quality is still noticeably deficient in a number of areas. From the get go, even before the actual imagery starts, with the credits sequence there's noticeable wobble and also a kind of distressing lack of really vibrant suffusion. The palette is actually pretty widely variant, with large swaths looking kind of anemic and wan, and then suddenly things bursting into bright vividness for a while. Color timing seems questionable at best, with quite a bit of tilting toward yellows and greens, something that can give the Spanish skies a kind of weird hue. The entire transfer is soft, and there are some moments that positively out of focus, as if registration issues had intruded, something that tends to be most noticeable toward the edges of the frame. I'm assuming this vestige of the DVD era probably had some kind of filtering applied, as grain, when evident, rarely looks very organic. There are moments here that approach at least relative commendability, but they're simply too few and far between.

El Cid Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Things are considerably better with regard to both the LPCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks on this disc. The surround track offers good placement of ambient environmental sounds, and the battle scenes in particular resonate with quite a bit of force. Rozsa's incredibly evocative music also spills quite winningly into the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. This release does not offer subtitles.

El Cid Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: Both the Blu-ray disc and DVD in this package are Region B locked.
Disc One (Blu-ray)

• Audio Commentary with William Bronston and Neil Rosendorf

Disc Two (DVD)

• The Making of El Cid (SD; 23:57) is subtitled Hollywood Conquers Spain and gets into Samuel Bronston's rather forward thinking production acumen, as well as some of the trials and tribulations of the shoot.


• Miklós Rózsa: Maestro of the Movies (SD; 30;12) is a heartfelt tribute to one of cinema's most iconic composers.


• Preserving Our Legacy (SD; 7:36) offers Gerry Byrne discussing restoration efforts.


• Anthony Man(n) and El Cid (SD; 17:24) has an unfortunate typo on the Menu (hence my parentheses), but offers some interesting information on the director.


• Sam Bronston: The Epic Journey of a Dreamer (SD; 52:19) is another really worthwhile biographical piece, profiling one of the more interesting producing forces from that era.


• Living a Life of Integrity: A Conversation with John Bevere (SD; 25:01) offers the bestselling minister offering some moral guidance.


• Vintage Radio Interviews with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren (SD; 14:22) play to somewhat comically anamorphically squeezed images from the film.


• Trailers

  Original Release (SD; 3:27)

  
  

  1993 Theatrical Re-release (SD; 1:06)

El Cid Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Years ago when I was writing for another site and reviewed the two DVD release of The Fall of the Roman Empire (note that the link points to Anchor Bay's UK Blu-ray release of the film), I was pleasantly shocked to get several emails from Bill Bronston, who not only commended my appreciation for his Dad's work, but gobsmackingly invited me into a pre-existing email chain with a bunch of Bronston connected people, including Miklós Rózsa's daughter! I was uncharacteristically too shy to join such an august conversation, but was struck by how invested Mr. Bronston was in preserving his father's legacy. Let's hope that with the advent of the aforementioned Japanese Blu-ray of this film, that process may be finally entering the high definition era. This release is only going to suffice for those who can't wait due to its lackluster video, but at least the supplements, while in standard definition, are very interesting and worthwhile.