Las hijas del Cid

The usual stuff about the rightful heir to a throne come to overthrow the usurper, when he is finally presented with the sword left behind by 'The Cid' (as he is referred to throughout) and crowned King of Catalonia.

The women as usual are entirely marginal to the scheming & swordplay which occupies most of the film's running time; although this film will ironically only be known to the few people who have ever heard of it because the second female lead is Dianiela Bianchi - whose next film was 'From Russia with Love'. It's a nothing part, however, and a much stronger impression is in fact made by the late Eliana Grimaldi in the even more marginal role of a lady-in-waiting called Bianca, who gassed herself before the film was released.

THE SWORD OF EL CID is an unofficial follow-up to the popular Hollywood flick, EL CID. It has little to do with that movie, instead being an Italo-Spanish co-production that bears little in the way of originality to distinguish it from at least a few dozen other costumers from the era.

The plot concerns a couple of daughters of the legendary hero who find themselves falling foul of some nefarious enemies - their own husbands! One of the daughters is played by future Bond girl Daniela Bianchi (FROM Russia WITH LOVE), but neither make much of an impact; this is one of those movies that seems to be shot in long-shot for the most part, meaning it's hard to get involved in the proceedings.

What follows is lots of plotting interspersed with some action, in the form of the lamest sword-fights you'll ever witness - seriously, these guys hit more softly than two kids playing with foam lightsabers. The unbelievable action is what really spoiled the movie for me, although things do pick up for an admittedly rousing storm-the-castle climax. The wooden hero is played by Roland Carey (THE GIANTS OF THESSALY) complete with ginger hair, while one of the writers behind it is future western director Ferdinando Baldi. None of this involvement is much of a reason to watch.

Low-brow but reasonably adequate follow-up to the classic EL CID (1961) – an even more loosely-related but superb one, however, was Vittorio Cottafavi's THE HUNDRED HORSEMEN (1964). This one, then, finds the two daughters of The Cid (obviously never shown here since he died in Anthony Mann's Hollywood spectacle) married to a couple of scoundrels – despite his having made them a gift of his famous swords {sic}! The two, in fact, side with a former enemy of the Cid's…but, to help the damsels-in-distress (one of them, by the way, is played by future Bond Girl Daniela Bianchi – albeit the duller of the two!), is the chief villain's own nephew (whose father's throne the latter had usurped!).

Roland Carey – who had been Jason (of the Argonauts and Golden Fleece fame) in Riccardo Freda's above-average peplum THE GIANTS OF THESSALY (1960) – is the hero here. Incidentally, despite this being officially an Italian production, the director is actually Spanish (though among the 7 credited scriptwriters are two future film-makers that emanated from the movie's nominal country i.e. Ferdinando Baldi – who often dabbled in the epic genre himself – and Alfredo Giannetti – Oscar-winning scribe of Pietro Germi's DIVORCE, Italian STYLE {1961}!). In any case, the film's highlights involve a three-way duel and the obligatory climactic assault on a castle fortress (which rather recalled the one from THE VIKINGS {1958}!). For the record, the handsome English-dubbed print I landed was, regrettably, via a typically-sabotaged (by way of garbled audio) transmission on the "Movies 4 Men" UK TV channel!

I saw this by chance on 'movies for men' yesterday.

It seemed to be an Italian or Spanish attempt to exploit the big Cid movie and the vogue for historical costume dramas of the time.

Whilst interesting to watch it hardly stands out as an epic film. The characterisations are weak and superficial, the sword fights are lame and over-contrived and, boy, are there a lot of horses.

Horses here, there and everywhere...the director must have commissioned an expensive troop of army cavalry as he uses them EVERYWHERE.

Oh, BTW, the wigs are out of this world.

Worth a watch to catch the flavour of cinema in those times.