One of the very finest epics produced, equally impressive in terms of script and spectacle. Heston is aptly heroic as the 11th Century patriot destined to die in the fight to evict the Moors from Spain, Mann's direction is stately and thrilling and Miklos Rosza's superb score perfectly complements the crisp and simple widescreen images. Sobriety and restraint, in fact, are perhaps the keynotes of the film's success, with the result that a potentially risible finale, in which Cid's corpse is born
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FUNNY GIRL (1968)
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The life of comedienne Fannie Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of the Lower East Side, when only her mother believed Fanny could make it in show business, to her hilarious debut as a rollerskating chorus-girl and on to the height of her career as a star with the Ziegfeld Follies. Unfortunately she fell in love, and married, the wrong man; handsome, urbane but inept gambler Nick. Streisand won the best actress Oscar in this classic musical.
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THAT HAMILTON WOMAN (1941)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Real-life lovers Olivier and Leigh gel perfectly and light up the screen in this portrayal of the rise, decline and fall of a courtesan and one of history's great, but doomed, love affairs. With its great dialogue audiences of the time adored this film, as did Churchill who announced it his favourite!
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THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (ERROL FLYNN) (1938)
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One of the truily great adventure movies, the type that Star Wars paid tribute to, and an example of what the large studios could produce. Glorious colour, sumptuos sets, and a brilliantly choreographed climatic sword fight between Flynn and Rathbone.
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THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX (1939)
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Nominated for five Academy Awards; Michael Curtiz's expansive period drama sets the tumultuous on-again, off-again affair between Queen Elizabeth I and the second Earl of Essex against Essex's powerful ambition to assume power in England. Having won several important battles, Essex's popularity among the masses is soaring, but despite his own substantial cunning he is ultimately no match for his Queen, a woman Essex greatly admires but has sworn to usurp. An epic, rip-roaring reinterpretation of
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