thousands "epic" AND, largely through the excellent acting of Van Heflin, Agnes Moorehead, and a couple other real actors and intelligent segments of the script, one of the better historical films. Van Heflin is totally believable as the pretender to the throne and is quite charismatic. If only, say, El Cid's Anthony Mann had directed, with Yakima Canutt as battle scene director, this movie could have been fantastic. As it is, the first battle scene, the storming of a fort, is largely wasted by thousands of ill-directed extras slogging forward. The last battle scene, however, has a certain sweep and indication of tactics that make it quite effective. Personally I think it Van Heflin's finest performance. A very much underrated actor.
