The 300 Spartans
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barry Coe, David Farrar, Diane Baker, Ralph Richardson, Richard EganBrand: FOX
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
Published: 2004-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-05-11
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The 300 Spartans
Movie Review: B Movie -- A Story
Summary: 5 Stars
'300 Spartans' is nothing if not a B movie. Production values were mediocre for the 60's and downright archaic for today. Acting was on a par with the old Steve Reeves 'Hercules' movies, that is to say wooden. But '300 Spartans,' as poorly made as it was, tells a marvelous story.
I first read the story of Leonidas at Thermopylae over 45 years ago in volume 8 of Collier's 'The New Junior Classics: Stories from History,' and that became the germ of a lifelong interest in ancient history and pregunpowder military history. I next met Leonidas in the pages of J.B. Bury's 'A History of Greece,' and A.R. Burns' 'Persia and the Greeks,' and I've recently renewed my acquaintance in Peter Greene's 'The Greco-Persian Wars' and Ernle Bradford's 'Thermopylae.' All of those books save the first can be purchased from Amazon.com. A public domain reprint of the first may be available from Amazon.com under the title 'Stories from Greece and Rome, Junior Classics Part 3.'
In brief, the story of Leonidas:
As Xerxes (aka Ahasueras), the Great King of the greatest empire the world had ever seen, prepared the greatest invasion force ever mustered, the Greeks sought advice from the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle pronounced that wooden walls would save Athens, but only the death of a Spartan king would save that unwalled city from ruin.
As the Persian juggernaut crossed over a two mile long pontoon bridge into Europe and began its relentless march into Greece, the Greeks temporized, argued, and dithered. Finally, Sparta sent King Leonidas with three hundred Spartiates to hold the pass at Thermopylae against the Persian hordes. Leonidas stiffened his contingent with Helots (Spartan serfs) and volunteers from several other Greek city-states. Phocis, Thebes, Thespia, and a few others swelled Leonidas' ranks to a few thousand.
Upon being told that when the Persians loosed their arrows the sky went black, the Spartiate Dienekes rejoined "Then we shall fight in the shade." At a point in the pass no more than 20 yards wide Leonidas met the Persians and stopped them dead in their tracks. For three days he and his men held the mightiest empire's mightiest army at bay, slaughtering the flower of the Persian army by the hundreds, if not thousands. He might have held, but a traitorous Greek showed the Persians a mountain pass by which they could turn Leonidas' position.
Leonidas had guarded the pass with 1,000 Phocians, but the Persian 'Immortals,' Xerxes' best unit, brushed them aside. Upon learning of this treachery, Leonidas sent the other city-states' contingents home and prepared for his last stand. The Thebans and Thespians volunteered to stay, and Leonidas chose for his battleground a wider section of the pass. He wanted as wide a front as possible so he could kill as many Persians as possible.
The Spartans joined battle with the Persians for the last time, and the slaughter was horrific. When, as anticipated, the Immortals took them in the rear, the Spartans retreated to a hillock, formed what the Middle Ages would call a 'Swiss Hedgehog,' and died to the last man.
As prophecy foretold, the Spartans lost their king, but saved their city, and the rest of Greece with it. The invasion continued apace, and Athens was sacked, with her entire population fleeing to the island of Salamis. There in the straits between Salamis and Athens, the Greeks lured the Persian navy to its doom. Later, on the plains of Plataea, Sparta avenged the death of their king by slaughtering the Persian army and ending once and for all the Persian threat.
'300 Spartans' follows this plot remarkably well, failing only in authenticity of detail. In the light of modern depictions of pregunpowder battle in movies like 'Ran,' 'Braveheart,' and 'Gladiator,' the battle scenes were near laughable, but we must remember the budgetary and special effects limitations of a 60's era B movie.
The movie got more right than it did wrong: The dithering of the Greeks, the insanity of Leonidas' march, the gritty determination and martial excellence of the Spartiate soldiers, the hubris of Xerxes, the death by archery of the Spartiates as they formed a Swiss Hedghog for their final stand, but most of all the heroic person of Leonidas the king who willingly laid down his life to save his city-state and all of Greece with it.
Richard Egan is probably best known for his portrayal of the villianous gladiator who was Victor Mature's foe in 'Demetrius and the Gladiators.' He makes a better villian than he does a hero, but there was still something very engaging in his portrayal of the heroic but doomed Spartan King.
Summary of The 300 Spartans
Synopsis:Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: NR
Street Date: 06/01/10
Wide Screen: yes
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
LanguageENGLISH
Foreign Film: no
Subtitlesno
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: no
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve Please note: This supplier will be closed on 11/24, 11/25, 12/26, 1/2 for the holidays. The shipping cut off is 12/10 to try and have the products delivered by Christmas.
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