El Cid (film)

El Cid is a 1961 Italian-American epic film produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Anthony Mann. It starred Charlton Heston, Sofia Loren, Raf Vallone, Geneviève Page, Herbert Lom, John Fraser, Gary Raymond and Tullio Carminati. The screenplay is credited to Fredric M. Frank, Philip Yordan, and Ben Barzman, with uncredited contributions by Bernard Gordon.

It is about the life of the Castilian warrior Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid (from the Arabic as-sidi meaning 'the lord').

El Cid premiered on December 6, 1961 at the Metropole Theater in London and was released on December 14 in the United States. The film received largely positive reviews that praised the performances of Heston and Loren, the cinematography, and the musical score. It went on to gross $26.6 million during its initial theatrical run. It was nominated for three Oscars: for Best Art Direction, Best Score for a Motion Picture Drama or Comedy, and Best Original Song.

Plot

General Ben Yusuf, belonging to the Almoravid dynasty, summons the emirs of Al-Andalus in North Africa. They are rebuked for peacefully coexisting with their Christian neighbors, which goes against their dream of Islamic world domination. The emirs return to Al-Andalus with orders to resume hostilities with the Christians, while Ben Yusuf prepares his army for a full-scale invasion.

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, on his way to his wedding with Doña Jimena, rescues a Castilian town from the attack of a Moorish army. Two of the emirs who have participated in the assault, Almutamin from Zaragoza and Al-Kadir from Valencia, are captured. More interested in peace than revenge, Rodrigo escorts his prisoners to Vivar and frees them on the condition that they never again attack the lands of King Ferdinand of Castile.

For his act of mercy, Don Rodrigo is accused of treason by Count Ordóñez, being supported by Count Gormaz, Jimena's father and king's champion. Rodrigo's elderly father, Don Diego, calls Gormaz a liar and he hits him with a glove, challenging him to a duel. In a private meeting, Rodrigo begs Gormaz to ask the old man for forgiveness, but Gormaz refuses, so Rodrigo confronts him and ends up killing him. Jimena, who witnesses the death of his father, swears to avenge him and renounces the love he felt for his fiancée. Taking advantage of the death of Count Gormaz, King Ramiro of Aragon claims the city of Calahorra and demands a single combat. Rodrigo, who intends to restore his honor in the eyes of the king, volunteers to participate in the combat, defeating the Aragonese opponent, Martín González.

Having become the king's champion, El Cid is sent to Al-Andalus to collect tribute from the Moors, asking that doña Jimena be given to him as a wife on his return, to take care of her in compensation for the murder of his father. Doña Jimena promises Count Ordóñez, who accompanies El Cid on the expedition, that she will marry him if she kills Rodrigo. Ordóñez, with the help of Al-Kadir from Valencia, ambushed Rodrigo and his men, but Almutamin from Zaragoza came to his aid and made the attackers flee. Discovering the deception, Rodrigo forgives Count Ordóñez and returns home to marry doña Jimena, but the marriage is not consummated, as Jimena refuses.

When King Ferdinand died, his sons Sancho and Alfonso fought over the succession, since the former wanted to be sole king and the latter remembered that his father divided the kingdom among his heirs, giving Castile to Sancho; Asturias and León to Alfonso; and Calahorra to Princess Urraca. It is Sancho who emerges victorious in single combat, sending his brother Alfonso to the dungeons of Zamora. Rodrigo, who swore to protect all the king's children equally, single-handedly defeats Alfonso's guards and takes Sancho to Calahorra, a city under Urraca's rule. Sancho goes as far as his walls to demand that Afonso be handed over to him, but Urraca refuses. Meanwhile, Ben Yusuf arrives in Valencia, the city from where he plans to land his army. There, he hires the Christian nobleman Dolfos, who deceives and murders Prince Sancho in front of the walls of Zamora. With this, Ben Yusuf intends to sow suspicion that the murder has been ordered by his brother. Although Alfonso becomes sole king, El Cid forces him to swear an oath on the Bible that he did not participate in the murder of his brother Sancho. As punishment for this offense, the new king dictates Rodrigo's banishment. Doña Jimena, realizing that she still loves him, decides to join her husband's exile, but El Cid leaves her in a monastery and part of her accompanied by a large group of faithful men, leaving Castile.

Years later, Rodrigo is summoned to court by King Alfonso, whom Ben Yusuf has challenged him to face in Sagrajas. El Cid advises against it, because he believes it convenient to conquer Valencia. The monarch rejects the Cid's allies and insists that he go to Sagrajas. El Cid visits doña Jimena in the monastery, where he meets her twin daughters, Elvira and Sol. From there, ignoring his king's order, Rodrigo allies with Almutamin of Zaragoza to besiege Valencia. After being defeated in the Battle of Sagrajas, King Alfonso orders Doña Jimena and her daughters to be imprisoned, forcing Rodrigo to abandon the siege of Valencia and go to Burgos, in danger from the Almoravid advance. Fortunately, Count Ordóñez frees them and transfers them to Valencia, definitively settling his rivalry with El Cid. Knowing that the inhabitants of the city of Valencia are hungry, Rodrigo orders to throw bread at them with his catapults, putting the citizens in favor of him, who open the city gates and assassinate the emir Al-Kadir. Although everyone asks El Cid to be crowned King of Valencia, he sends the crown to King Alfonso.

Ben Yusuf arrives with his immense invading army and, after torturing and murdering Count Ordóñez, only Valencia stands between him and conquering everything. The battle between the two sides begins well for the defenders, but El Cid is hit in the chest by an arrow and returns to Valencia, in full view of the Moorish army. Almutamin believes that Rodrigo can save his life if the arrow is removed, but Rodrigo refuses, as doing so would incapacitate him for the next day's attack. Rodrigo, willing to silence the rumors that he has died, greets the inhabitants of Valencia and promises that he will ride next to him in the morning. Minutes before El Cid dies, King Alfonso arrives in Valencia full of guilt and asks for his forgiveness, promising to take care of his daughters. His allies fulfill Rodrigo's last wish, tying him with the help of an iron structure to his horse. Led by King Alfonso and Emir Almutamin, the corpse of El Cid leads a mounted charge against the now terrified soldiers of Ben Yusuf, who believe that El Cid has risen from the dead. In the ensuing panic, Ben Yusuf is thrown from the horse and crushed under Babieca's hooves, leaving his army scattered from him to be annihilated. King Alfonso leads Christians and Moors in a prayer for God to receive the soul of "the purest gentleman of all".

Cast

• Charlton Heston is Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.
• Sofia Loren is Jimena Díaz.
• Raf Vallone is Count Ordóñez.
• Geneviève Page is Urraca de Zamora, sister of Alfonso VI de León.
• John Fraser is Alfonso VI de León.
• Hurd Hatfield is Arias.
• Massimo Serato is Fáñez, nephew of Rodrigo.
• Frank Thring is Al Kadir, king of Valencia.
• Michael Hordern is Don Diego Laínez, Rodrigo's father.
• Manuel Martínez Escrich is Guerrero.
• Andrew Cruickshank is Diego Gomez de Gormaz, Count of Oviedo.
• Douglas Wilmer is Al-Mutamin, king of Zaragoza.
• Tullio Carminati is Al-Jarifi.
• Gary Raymond is Prince Sancho II of Castile.
• Herbert Lom is Ben Yussuf.
• Ralph Truman is King Fernando I, father of Sancho, Alfonso and Urraca.
• Javier Portillo is a buffet from Ortiz's court.

Comments

Samuel Bronston's preference for Carmen Sevilla (with whom he had just shot King of Kings) to the detriment of Sara Montiel, caused problems to arise between producer and director, Anthony Mann, Sara's husband Montiel. She recounted with disdain how she turned down the role, suggesting that the beautiful Sophia Loren play it. For some mass scenes, recruits who were doing military service were used.

The film was shot in various parts of Spain; among them, the following:

• Avila.
• Ampudia (Palencia)
• Burgos
• Calahorra (La Rioja)
• Belmonte (Cuenca)
• Madrid: Estudios Chamartín
• Manzanares el Real (Madrid)
• Peñíscola (Castellón)
• Gormaz (Soria)
• Toledo
• Torrelobatón (Valladolid)
• Ripoll (Gerona): in the monastery
• León
• Colmenar Viejo (Madrid): in the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios

Outside Spain, it was shot in Rome and Bamburgh Beach (UK).

Awards

Medals of the Circle of Film Writers.

The film had three Oscar nominations:

• for the best artistic direction
• for the best music
• for the best song, The falcon and the pigeon (The Falcon and the Dove)

Differences from historical facts

• The film frequently mentions the word "Spain". This must be understood as referring to Hispania or the Iberian peninsula. They all speak in modern Spanish.
• Fernando I appears as king of Castile and Leon, when he was actually only of León and Count of Castile. Fernando I also had a daughter named Elvira, who was made with the Lord of Toro at the death of his father and a son named Garcia, who was king of Galicia at the death of his father. Both characters do not appear or are mentioned in the film.
• Almutamin, king of the Taifa of Zaragoza, swears allegiance to the Cid at the beginning of the film, while King Ferdinand I, who died in 1063, reigned. The reality is that Almutamin and the Cid only had a relationship between 1081 and 1085. In addition, Almutamin also did not reside in Valencia next to the Cid, for he died before the city was conquered by it in 1094.
• Doña Jimena's father was not Count Gormaz, a fictional character, but Count Diego Fernández. Moreover, Cid and Doña Jimena did not marry before the death of Fernando I, but about ten years later, on the proposal of his son, King Alfonso VI. Therefore, the argumental arch of Jimena's father's murder is totally invented.
• Peñíscola appears represented as if it were Valencia. However, the historic center of Valencia is not on the coast, but on the alluvial plain of Turia, so the medieval city did not have direct access to the beach, was a few kilometers inland.
• Urraca inherited Zamora, not Calahorra. In fact, Alfonso took refuge next to his sister in Zamora, in front of whose walls Sancho was killed at the hands of Vellido Dolfos, according to legend. However, Almutamin is not involved in any source as an instigator of the murder, being an internal dispute of the Kingdom of Castile. Moreover, the plot implies that the dispute between the two brothers began in 1063, at the death of King Ferdinand I, but in fact both lived without attack until the death of Queen Mother Sancha de León in 1067.
• Although in the film it seems to show a neutral attitude in the disputes between Sancho and Alfonso, the Cid always served and fought from Prince Sancho. With Alfonso as king, Rodrigo maintained good relations with the new monarch, and this was the one who proposed to him an advantageous marriage with Doña Jimena. Finally, his exile was not due to his attitude in the Jura de Santa Gadea, an episode currently considered legendary, but to an incursion by the Rodrigo into the taifa of Toledo, then under the direct protection of King Alfonso.
• Based on the Song of mine Cid, the film shows Rodrigo with two daughters, called Elvira and Sol. In fact, the sources confirm that the children of the Cid were Cristina, Diego and Maria.
• Al-Kadir of Valencia is presented as a traitor ally to the Almoravids, but in fact it was vassal of the Cid, killed for these two years before the Valencia takeover in 1094.
• On the site of Valencia there were no bread hogazas, although it recalls the "bombardeos of the bread" of 1938, made by Franco over several republican cities, in the Civil War. The film shows the Cid rejecting the crown of Valencia but, in fact, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar became headline as "Prince Rodrigo el Campeador" after conquering this city.
• King Alfonso VI did not come to Valencia to the death of the Cid, but did it a year later, in 1100, being already widowed by Doña Jimena. Beyond the legendary origin of the final scene, the emir Almutamin could not be present either, because he died in 1084, more than a decade before Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar did, which really died because of natural causes.

Shooting locations

This film was shot, among other places, in Peñíscola, Ampudia, Torrelobatón and the Belmonte Castle.

Reception

• It is one of Martin Scorsese's favorite films, which considers it "one of the greatest epic films ever created". Scorsese was one of the main forces behind the restoration and reinstatement The Cid in 1993.