I first saw this Russian/Soviet epic on WOR TV's "Million Dollar Theater" back in the 60s, on our old B&W set. I would compare it with Sergei Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky"-virtuous Russians fighting evil invaders, in this case with a big dose of fantasy, Russian folklore, and done on a Cecil B. DeMille scale. I have not read much about the making of this movie but I suspect most of the extras were Red Army soldiers, much the same way the Soviet Army provided all the extras for "Waterloo" in 1970. The acting probably is a little broad by our standards but they do things differently in other countries and seeing a foreign is like travel-you see something different. And this is a fantasy-were there any subtleties of expression in "Star Wars"? I think the 1950s special effects hold up even in our CGI era and they looked fine on a 14" B&W screen in 1963. A nice big bag of popcorn, a cold winter night-or just a rainy one, the lights down, sit back and enjoy the show.
Review of The Sword and the Dragon
