So he hired the best people he could think of: cinematographer Robert Krasker, who used the radical and innovative Technirama70 format that magnified the endless open spaces of the Spanish plateaus, Miklos Rozsa for the score -his last great triumph, which should have won him another Oscar- and Anthony Mann, who had cut his teeth making Westerns with James Stewart. Bronston wanted to make an unique epic, a high quality production with sheer spectacle and credited with some historical veracity.
Franco would use "El Cid" to promote Spain around the world as a touristic destination during the Sixties. Of course, Bronston succeeded easily through bribery in a corrupt country, as well as through the willingness of Franco to allow American business to settle in Spain and help revive its obsolete economy.
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This self-made movie mogul not only had the confidence and charm to persuade other people to lend him huge sums of money but he also got Franco's ultra-Catholic fascist regime to approve the making of a film about their national hero where the main character was to be played by a foreigner who was also a Protestant. At least we should be grateful that someone came up and took the challenge of making such a film in the first place. Many Spaniards tend to put this great film down only because it was made by a bunch of American and Italian "philistines" with no knowledge of the legend at all but for the only purpose of creating an epic to rival with "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus". Yes, it is not one hundred per cent historically accurate, but then, how much do we really know about an 11th century warrior when very few written documents of the era survive today? We only have a few of the old cantigas (poems to be sung) and the Poema de Mio Cid at the Spanish national archives. Still many people have put it down as a folly with no real depth or substance, and others for its historical inaccuracy. This is one of the best epic super-productions of all time, with a beautiful cinematography, a majestic score and a solid and dynamic direction.
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