Alexander the Great

1956

Action / Biography / Drama / History / War

32
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 41% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 5.8/10 10 4577 4.6K

empire epic alexander the great king 4th century bc

Director

Robert Rossen Photo
Robert Rossen

Top cast

José Marco Photo
José Marco as Harpalus
Ramsay Ames Photo
Ramsay Ames as Drunken Woman
Christopher Lee Photo
Christopher Lee as Nectenabus
Fredric March Photo
Fredric March as Philip of Macedonia
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1.02 GB
1280*544
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
2 hr 21 min
Seeds 4
2.11 GB
1920*816
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles
23.976 fps
2 hr 21 min
Seeds 10

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by DICK STEEL 6 / 10

A Nutshell Review: (DVD) Alexander the Great

I borrowed this movie with one intent, and that is to see how the subject material was handled in the 50s, compared to the most recent interpretation by Oliver Stone, who gave us an Alexander with Colin Farrell complete with his hair dyed blonde. And while I was lamenting the fact that there were only 2 war scenes on a massive scale included in that version, the hype that surrounded the story of a conqueror seemed to have made way for Stone's very queer depiction on the bisexuality of Alexander, especially with the camera adopting his POV and gazing ever so lovingly at the male species, countless of times until you want to throw up. I guess subtle is never in Stone's books.Now this version written and directed by Robert Rossen (who also gave us the original Hustler) did away with all that sexuality issues, and neither did it find any need to have gratuitous nudity in watching Alexander make love (in Stone's version, Rosario Dawson went nude in her role as Roxane). Then again it was made about 50 years ago. Anyway, what I found to be a major disappointment, were the battle scenes. Yes, it might be terribly dated by now, and sadly didn't survive the test of time. At certain scenes and angles, it's akin to old martial arts movies, where enemies just circle around you, waiting for their choreographed moves to be executed, or worse, if you pay attention to characters in the background, they surely aren't moving like ferocious warriors, choosing instead to mull around!Also, we only get one major battle sequence in Alexander the Great, which made the foray into India in Stone's Alexander look like bonus material. In fact, this version took some time to establish key characters, and began with Alexander's father King Philip's (Fredric March) conquests first, interrupted by the birth of his son, and the prophetic signs under which he was born. It took almost 30 minutes before you see any semblance to a fight, and almost one hour before Richard Burton finally takes over the mantle and seeks out his destiny as one of the greatest known world conquerors of all time. However, the film felt like it was in two arcs, the first which dwells on the internal bickering within Greece with its many factions, and the plotting between mother Olympias (Danielle Darrieux) and King Philip, each wanting to win over Alexander's loyalty for their own political purpose. In this version though, which harped on Darrieux's appearance in the credits, I thought she made Angelina Jolie look more formidable in the role. At least Jolie was dripping with evilness and cunning, compared to the more subdued Darrieux.The latter half dealt with Alexander's conquests through Asia, though most of the facts were glossed over. It was too little too late as most of which are told using montage, intertitles and narration, which made it look like a rush job to end it. While Stone's movie had focused a fair bit over Alexander's obsession with being the Son of God and his increasing obsession over himself and his glories, this version again made those themes look superbly examined in Stone's version. However, one thing's for certain, Richard Burton, even with the horribly blond hair which looked like a wig, was indeed a lot more charismatic and believable than Coliln Farrell. And that also meant when Burton was wearing the horrendous full faced helmet so that the stunt guy can take over!All in all, a pretty decent effort in telling the story of Alexander the Great, however as mentioned, it didn't really stood up to the test of time.
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Reviewed by michaelarmer 4 / 10

Epic Play

This was supposed to be an epic, but it was hardly that, it was like a Shakespearean play intermingled with a few badly arranged battle scenes, it is only just over 2hrs long, for an epic you would expect it to be in the region of 3hrs, but in fact it was quite boring and should have been made shorter.

Richard Burton overacts in a dodgy blonde wig, but Claire Bloom is very good and quite beautiful (still acting today at aged 89 and still looks great), Fredric March who also acted well as his dad Phillip of Macedonia, but he was only in it for a 1/3 of the movie before his character was killed off, Harry Andrews (from Kent) played Darius the Persian King reasonably ok, but looked well dodgy, he had a few hair accessories as well, Stanley Baker was underused, everyone else was there to make up the numbers.

Spain was the setting for Greece and Persia, so it looked ok (to a point), but scenery was not used much, photography was poor and the direction can't have been up to much, because you had a stellar cast and great scenery which both were not used to their potential, so the result was only a below average film at best. It looks like it was promoted as an epic but made on the cheap. Possibly a good project for a remake, with a good director and cast, they could not do worse than this.

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