I am with you there!
The jousting scene was certainly one of the best such scenes I have seen on celluloid, better even than the scene in TROY between Hector & Achilles, played by Bana & Pitt.

IMHO, this film has two real stars. The first star is Sophia Loren's incredible, luminous beauty. She owns the screen in every scene she's in. Breathtaking, really. The second star is the incredible talent of Yakima Canutt and his son, Joe, who coordinated the action scenes and stunts. The joust scene where the Cid vindicates his honor ranks as one of the best action sequences ever filmed, right up there with the chariot race in Ben Hur. These two things are the film's true stars, as far as I'm concerned.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae

I enjoy this movie more and more at each viewing, it grows on you, for its scale, outstanding music and cinematography, and as you said some of its ideas. What's interesting is how the political/religious conflict depicted has spooky parallels with our time.
Wonderful point on how the themes resonate with Iraq and Afghanistain today. Perhaps we need our Rodrigo.

"Most of the extras were from Franco's Spanish army so can't get more Spanish than that. "
er.. isn't that the point, modern Spain is the mixture of all of the cultures since this time, some 900 years ago. When they are trying to depict Christian Iberians. ie.descended from Germanic stock.

The woman playing his wife was, uh, Sophia Loren. Herbert Lom played the Ben Yussuf Islamic villain- i.e. the "Storm Trooper villain leader", lol. I guess these actors were long before your era. Yussuf didn't get much screen time maybe some ended up on the cutting room floor. He book-ended the story at any rate, even if the character could have been developed a little more. But he served his purpose as what motivated the Spanish Moors and Christians to join forces which they otherwise might not not have done to fight the invader from Africa. I enjoy this movie more and more at each viewing, it grows on you, for its scale, outstanding music and cinematography, and as you said some of its ideas. What's interesting is how the political/religious conflict depicted has spooky parallels with our time.
The acting is actually pretty good throughout and Heston is just Heston at his best epic form, almost the equal of his work in Ben-Hur. He really took on the look of a Spanish warrior after intermission with his beard/goatee.
"It seems nowadays that Charlton Heston has always existed, and, if he hadn't, it would've been necessary to invent him." A great quote from an excellent essay by Gordon Thomas at this link:
http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/52/benhur.htm
It's hard to judge whether the cast was not Spanish-looking enough because some Spaniards have light complexions and there's a range of them. Most of the extras were from Franco's Spanish army so can't get more Spanish than that.

heston's a ham. that's true. good movie.
We're not soldiers and he's not the enemy. He's a pizza man.

I can't say that I like the content at all. Pure mythologizing nonsense from a historical point of view. However, Anthony Mann did a bangup job with his extreme close-ups and extreme long-shots as well as framed single shots that embrace a close shot in the foreground and an extreme long shot in the background. This elevated the sense of forces in competition over land and power and dramatized the Cid's iron will. Few directors have the visual power that Mann displayed in El Cid.

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