Best Movies Set in Rome

[Theodosius the Great]

And finally one of the most thoughtful debates ever in cinema about how the empire should deal with those it called Barbarians

Another historical flaw though. That whole speech given by Marcus Aurelius in which he promised eventual universal citizenship would've been unthinkable at that time - even though it happened 30 years later.

But, I agree with the rest of your observations of what was good about the film. Unfortunately, it's all superficial. The acting by the non-British actors was atrocious, IMO, instead of the usual mediocre quality I'm used to seeing. The script reads like a first draft at best. The music (so important !) was completely incongruous with almost every scene, especially during the action sequences. ARRRRGHHHHH ! I can't sit through the whole film, I have to watch it in segments - sometimes over a two day period :roll: At least that's how I feel after Alec Guiness dies off - he was the one actor that anchored the whole film up to his death. In other words, all of his scenes were excellent even when the poor actors were interacting with him.

This film showed Stephen Boyd's lack of any acting ability. The only reason he came off as being a decent actor in Ben Hur was because the director (William Wyler) kept drilling him over and over, shooting take after take until he got a decent performance out of him. But Antony Mann didn't do too many takes with his leading man for FOTRE and his film was greatly diminished, hence its somber reception by the movie-goers.

But his other film, El Cid, was a hit since Charlton Heston is a gifted actor and didn't need much directing.

BTW, by my count it seems that the Spanish Army was used to play Roman legionaries in three major epics - Spartacus (1960), FOTRE (1964), and Cleopatra (1963). Any others I missed ? I know they also played as Alexander's Macedonian troops, but can't think of any other Roman films.