Alexander the Great
by Robert Rossen
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Actor: Barry Jones, Claire Bloom, Danielle Darrieux, Fredric March, Richard BurtonDirector: Robert Rossen
Brand: TCFHE/MGM
Cinematographer: Robert Krasker
Producer: Robert Rossen
Writer: Robert Rossen
Editor: Ralph Kemplen
Producer: Gordon Griffith
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 141 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Alexander the Great
DVD Review: Long on Spectacle Short on Drama
Summary: 3 Stars
For a film that has as many classic actors as it does, ALEXANDER THE GREAT still manages to misfire enough to cause the viewer to lose interest by midpoint. Whenever a film goes off course like that, the fault is usually the director's. In this case, Robert Rossen took a very big budget film and used it appallingly. Rossem filmed ALEXANDER THE GREAT as if it were two unrelated movies. The first half has Alexander (Richard Burton) in constant Oedipal conflict with his father Phillip (Frederick March). March plays Phillip as a ruler more interested in protecting his realm from a son whom he considers to be only quasi-legitimate since his wife (Danielle Darrieux) was forced on him as part of a political alliance. Phillip raises Alexander as one who is fit to command an army but not a nation. For that, he dreams of choosing a wife with whom he may bear a son to rule after him. Burton plays Alexander as one who owes fealty to his father but only at the cost of fealty to his destiny. From the very moment of Alexander's birth, omens presage his latent divinity, all the while reinforcing in Phillip's mind that his son is a mixed blessing. Alexander grows knowing that his future in irrevocably mixed with the Gods of Olympus. By the time that Phillip is assassinated, Alexander is convinced that his destiny and Greece's destiny are the same thing.
The second half is a working out of Alexander's vision of world conquest. The Gods of Olympus choose their entrants most carefully and Alexander deduces that it is only by humbling the Persian king Darius that he may assume the mantle of divinity. The problem of the second half is a continuation of that of the first half. For a film that chronicles the exploits of a world conquerer, ALEXANDER THE GREAT does not deliver the military dramatic goods. Whenever Alexander's forces face a foe, the entire filmed battle is more of a vignette than lively interpretation of blood and gore. Historically, Alexander overcame fearsome odds at nearly every battle by means of tactical genius. Here, he simply lines up his men and shouts at them "Charge!" The frequent discourses between March and Burton hold the first half more or less together, but there is nothing like that to do likewise in the second. Alexander runs from one battle to another whose fiercest opposition comes not from any Persian but from malcontents in his own army who see him as a false god unwilling to take them back to Greece after a ten year hiatus in Asia conquering the known world. Burton, as usual, holds up his end with his richly resonant voice though his physique seems a little too pretty-boy like for the role. There is not a whiff of any homesexual subtext that is usually associated with any filmed version of Alexander's life. ALEXANDER THE GREAT concludes as a film that is a sad misuse of what should have been a soul stirring spectacle of one who sought to rule a world when he could not first rule himself.
Description of Alexander the Great
AN EPIC FILM THAT FOLLOWS THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, THEMACEDONIAN KING THAT UNITED ALL ANCIENT GREEK TRIBES AND LEDTHEM AGAINST THE VAST PERSIAN EMPIRE. ALEXANDER CONQUERED MOSTOF THE THEN KNOWN WORLD AND CREATED A GREEK EMPIRE THAT SPANNED ALL THE WAY FROM THE BALKANS TO INDIA.Bestsellers in DVD
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