A screen classic, thanks to an ‘amazing hustler’

Martin Scorsese has described the 1961 historical drama “El Cid” as “one of the greatest epic films ever made.” The classic film starring Charlton Heston as the legendary Spanish knight Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar -- “El Cid” -- and Sophia Loren as his love, Chimene, screens this evening in a beautifully restored new print at the ArcLight in Hollywood.

“El Cid” arrives Tuesday on DVD in a lavish two-disc set from the new Weinstein Co. label, the Miriam Collection.

Directed by Anthony Mann, the film received Oscar nominations for art direction, song and the soaring score by Miklos Rozsa.

“It’s so romantic and so dynamic,” says William Bronston, the son of the film’s producer, Samuel Bronston. William also supplies commentary on the DVD. “It has such sweep to it.”

Born in Russia and raised in France, Sam Bronston came to the United States in 1937 at the age of 29. Though he cut his producer teeth in the early 1940s with such films as “Jack London,” he found his niche in the late 1950s and early 1960s producing a series of epic films in Spain.

Besides “El Cid,” he also made “John Paul Jones,” “55 Days in Peking” and “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.” The last was a costly box-office disappointment, and his company declared bankruptcy. Bronston died of Alzheimer’s disease and pneumonia at 85.

The younger Bronston says his father “had this astounding capacity to bring people together and to convince people to put money into whatever. He was the most suave, the most attractive and amazing hustler I had ever seen in my life.”

As cliched as it sounds, Hollywood doesn’t make movies like “El Cid” any more. These days, the battle scenes would be populated by computer-created extras and the castles would be virtual with the actors performing in front of a green screen.

“Part of what makes the movie so profoundly beautiful is that something amazing has been forgone and lost from that time to this time,” Bronston says. “This is pure reality. My dad’s policy was money was no object. Whatever it took, he would spend it.”

-- Susan King