The 300 Spartans (1962)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Rudolph Maté

Writers:

Gian Paolo Callegari (original story material)
Remigio Del Grosso (original story material)

Release Date:

August 1962 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | War

Plot:

Essentially true story of how Spartan king Leonidas led an extremely small army of Greek Soldiers (300...

Plot Keywords:

Persian | Greece | Spartan | Soldier | Warrior

Cast

Richard Egan	...	King Leonidas
Ralph Richardson	...	Themistocles of Athens (as Sir Ralph Richardson)
Diane Baker	...	Ellas
Barry Coe	...	Phylon
David Farrar	...	Xerxes
Donald Houston	...	Hydarnes
Anna Synodinou	...	Gorgo
Kieron Moore	...	Ephialtes
John Crawford	...	Agathon the Spartan Spy
Robert Brown	...	Pentheus
Laurence Naismith	...	First Delegate
Anne Wakefield	...	Artemisa
Ivan Triesault	...	Demaratus
Charles Fawcett	...	Megistias
Michalis Nikolinakos	...	Myron (as Michael Nikolinakos)

Also Known As:

Lion of Sparta

Runtime:

114 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #29936) | Australia:G | West Germany:12 (nf) | Malaysia:U (DVD) | Singapore:PG | Germany:12 (DVD rating) | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG | UK:U (cut)

Filming Locations:

Athens, Greece

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

The final film for David Farrar, after which he retired to South Africa.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: When the Persian army is into Greece where they will meet the Spartans, they are marching between mountains on their left, and water on their right. In actuality, the Persians were marching south along the eastern edge of Greece, so the water would have been on their left with mountains on their right. The way the movie portrays it, the Persians are marching out of Greece.

Quotes:

Leonidas, Spartan King: Why were you not in council?
Agathon the Spartan Spy: Because I'm not a good liar. I don't want to frighten them.
Leonidas, Spartan King: Then the army is as enormous as they say?
Agathon the Spartan Spy: Leonidas, it is bigger than anything you can imagine. For six days, I watched them pass. Six days! I ran out of numbers and still more of them came. They're drinking the rivers dry. And at night there are more of their campfires than there are stars in the sky!
Leonidas, Spartan King: Good. When I was a boy, I always wanted to reach the stars with my spear.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Watchmen (2009)

Very credible job

This was one of the last of the great sword-and-sandal epics. Unlike many before it or since, it managed to get the facts generally correct. The story, recorded in Herodotus, concerns a small band of troops from Sparta who held off the advance of the Persian army in the 5th century B.C. In doing so, they gave their fellow Greeks time to organise a larger army. Themes include: democracy vs. despotism, and sacrifice for the sake of the common good. Ever stoic Richard Egan (star of "Pollyanna," "Esther and the King," and other fun films) does a great job of projecting the inner strength of Spartan leader Leonidas. This film is not to be missed and ranks with other memorable epics of the 1960s, such as "The Long Ships". Note: this is newly remastered and should not be confused with the botched version released some months prior.